


Charly

by petra_austria



Category: 1D - Fandom, One Direction, directioners
Genre: F/M, Funny, Tour life, Twisted relationships, funny direction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 44,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1984686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petra_austria/pseuds/petra_austria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Charly's boyfriend breaks up with her for another man, she finds distraction with recently-single Liam while on tour with the band as Pauls assistant, not realizing that someone else got an eye on her. Balancing tour life and sneaking around isn't always as hard as you think...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

„Ouch!!“, Charly screamed out. „What?!“, Liam asked alarmed. “God, Liam!”, she said and held her right boob. “Thank god my boobs are real. Otherwise you would have popped one just now”, she explained sarcastically after Liam hit her boob by accident. They passed some time before the start of the show by practicing some of Liam’s boxing moves. Charly was a total newbie at this and he was just supposed to show her some moves and then he threw punches like he was in survival mode.  
“No way, let me take a look”, Liam said and wanted to take away her arm. “Yeah right. At first, you hit me, then you try to feel me up”, she joked with fake seriousness. The lads were used to her kind of humor after 2 months of working together, so he didn’t take her serious. “I’m surely gonna get a bruise”, Charly said and rubbed that part of her skin. “Hey, don’t ruin my favorite pillows”, Harry spoke up. He was actually referring to her breasts.  
About two weeks ago, he was feeling a bit blue and very cuddly, so he snuggled up to Charly and fell asleep on her. He said it was his best nap ever. From then on, he did a few power naps on her boobs. Charly was reading or sleeping herself, when he did that. Obviously it was weird at first, but it really made her feel like she was his mummy.  
“No, seriously, are you okay though?”, Liam now asked. “Yeah, I’m fine…ouch”, she said after pressing the spot where he hit her. “No more boxing for you, young lady”, Harry said and guided Charly by her shoulders to the nearest couch. “Yes, daddy”, she pouted and sat down. “It sounds so dirty when you say that”, Harry replied and winked at her. “Ok guys, time to get ready”, Paul came in and interrupted the situation. “I’ve got your clothes laid out already”, Lisa, the stylist of the band for this tour walked in right behind him. The little crowed scattered and Lou started on Louis’ hair because they always took the longest. Charly meanwhile went over to the stage to take a look around the crowd and watched the crowd of fans getting bigger.  
Some of the fans already knew who she was and her twitter follower got more and more every day because sometimes she tweeted about the boys or posted backstage pictures. “Hey Charly!”, she heard a few girls scream at her and a few other’s to turn heads. She waved, smiled and went back to where the guys got ready. Liam was doing some push-ups to pump up his arms for the show. Charly took out her phone, took a picture of him and posted it on Twitter with the words “Liam’s pumped for the show, are you?”. In just a few seconds, her tweet had several hundred retweets and got marked as a favorite. Harry was driving Lisa nuts because he would just not put on his shirt so Lou could start on his hair. Louis and Zayn were joking and jumping around. The usual mess.  
In the two months she was working for One Direction, she was still not fully used to what was going on on tour and in the dressing room right before. Sometimes she felt like she was interrupting a well oiled machinery if she just stepped in. “Hey, who took that picture of me?”, Liam asked after looking at his phone. “Fans must have sneaked in”, Charly said with the brightest of smiles. “But it’s posted on your account”, he said investigative. “Oh Liam, you know those Directioners can hack EVERYTHING”, she referred to the incident a few months ago, she had read in the papers about. “Showtime, boys”, Paul said and clapped his hands to get everybody moving.  
“Where are we going to party afterwards?”, Niall asked while walking towards the stage. Their support group 5 Seconds of Summer have just ended their set a few minutes ago and the stage was cleared for One Direction. “I don’t know, I can’t go anyways. I’m having a skype-date with my boyfriend”, Charly almost had to scream because the fans were incredibly loud, even backstage. “You’re not going? Come on, you can have your date later”, Niall begged for her to come. She’s never been out with them before, even though he tried it every time.  
“Next time”, she waved him off and pushed him forward to his position of the opening of the show. “Have fun, guys. To a great show”, she patted everyone’s back like every time before they went on stage. Then the boys got into a circle, did their little pre-show ritual and got back in position just in time for the curtain to go up. The chanting of the crowd got even louder and now it was about time for Charly to get her ear-plugs in. She made the mistake of watching the show without them at the first two shows and afterwards was only able to communicate with screaming because she couldn’t hear properly. She didn’t know how the guys did it, since they only had their in-ears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you have the second chapter already since the first was so short =)
> 
> Enjoy!

“Have fun guys, but don’t overdo it”, Paul admonished the guys before they took off to their afterparty. “Oh Paul, don’t worry, we always behave”, Louis said and put his arm around Paul’s shoulders. “If that’s behaving what you did last time then goodnight!”, Paul sighed and rolled his eyes. “Let’s go guys!”, Liam said and was the first one out the door. “And you really don’t wanna come?”, Niall asked Charly who was sitting on the couch playing with her phone. She looked up and gave him an excusing smile. “Sorry, but I really can’t”, she said and got up. “But have fun…and don’t kiss too many girls. They will get jealous and hunt you down”, she joked and patted his cheek before she left to get to her hotel room. Niall kept looking at her until she was out the door. “Niall, you’re drooling”, Paul pointed out and had to laugh a bit. “Shut up”, Niall put it as a joke and followed the guys to the taxi that was already waiting. It would have been more fun if Charly would have joined in, but he was excited for the club. He always was. He couldn’t wait to dance to different songs than their own and drink and have fun.  
Charly on the other hand was getting ready in her room for her little skype date with her boyfriend. She was late; he would call in 5 minutes. So she just brushed her hair, refreshed her lipgloss and started her laptop. They have agreed on 11:30 pm since the show of the guys and the wrap-up afterwards would always take that long. She was a bit nervous. She hadn’t talked to Ethan for a while now. He had just started a new job and was busy all the time and wanted to make a good impression at his new workplace. That meant working late, mostly texting and when he skyped with her, then very shortly. That’s why they set today’s call a while ago so that he could make his plans around it.  
When the clock showed her it was midnight and still no word from him, she was a bit pissed. When the clock stroke 1 am, she was out of her mind. She texted him furiously. 2 minutes later came his response. “Can’t make it, sorry. E”, was his lame excuse. “Oh you fucker!”, Charly screamed out. She was about to call him, but she just knew that he wouldn’t pick up. She pushed down the screen of her laptop and just got into bed, but she was too mad to sleep. Then it came to her. Why should she spend the night in bed when everybody else was out partying, Ethan surely as well. If he could reply that quickly then he’s not at home sleeping.  
“Are you still at the club?”, she texted Niall. “Yes.” His answer almost came immediately. “I’ll be there in 20”, she texted back and quickly threw on some clothes. She put on some makeup, but didn’t take too much of an effort. She just wanted to dance like crazy and get drunk. She almost ran down the hotel stairs and gladly got a taxi right away. 18 minutes later she arrived at the club. She was impressed by her timing. When she got closer to the entrance, she saw the masses of people standing in line to get in. If she would get in line, she probably wouldn’t get in before 6 am. So she took out her phone while walking alongside the building to the side entrance to text Niall to pick her up. “at the back entrance, come pick me up, Mr. Ireland”, she texted. As soon as she pushed the send-button, the door opened and she looked up. That was quick, she wanted to say, but actually spotted Liam, who came out of the door and wasn’t able to really stand up by his own. He had a bottle in his hand that didn’t look like beer.  
He leaned against the wall and wanted to take out his cigarettes, but because he was too drunk, he dropped the bottle. “Liam?”, Charly asked as she came closer. At first, he didn’t hear her. She quickly came closer and he started to slide down the wall to his right. She stopped him before he hit the floor. “God, Liam. What happened to you?”, she joked, but when she saw his face, she immediately stopped. His eyes were red and swollen. It looked like he had cried. “What happened?”, she asked all serious now. “Ssss brow up wit meh”, Liam mumbled. “WHAT?!”, Charly didn’t understand a word. “Se broah…sh bord up wif meeeee”, he tried again, almost angry. “Who bored you?”, Charly tried. He wanted to give it another try, but then he fumbled for his phone which almost fell out of his hands. His fingers angrily wiped over the screen and then he handed, no, dropped the phone into her hands. She needed to turn it around first to find a text message he wanted her to read.  
“I know it’s a shitty move to do it over the phone, but I hardly ever reach you. So, to make it quick. I’m breaking up with you. I can’t do the long distance anymore. Sorry!”, Charly read silently and looked up. “Is this from Sophia?”, she asked the obvious. He just nodded. “Did you call her?” “I-I tried, bu’ she didnn answa”, he kept mumbling. Boy, was he drunk! Charly realized that it was a lost cause trying to talk to him. “Come on, we’ll get you back to the hotel”, she said and wrapped one of her arms around his waist and put his arm over her shoulder. He almost put all his body weight on her and she was glad she didn’t wore high heels.  
She guided him away from the entrance so no one, especially no fans, would see him. She was sending a quick prayer to heaven for finding a taxi quickly. She could stop one with Liam almost totally collapsed on her and she luckily maneuvered him into the taxi. She named the hotel and as the taxi driver drove to their destination, she got out her phone. “Change of plans, getting Liam back to the hotel. He’s too drunk to function”, she texted Niall, who probably was already waiting for her at the back entrance.  
At the next second Niall received that text. He quickly read it and sighed. “It was too good to be true”, he said to himself, standing in the small back street behind the club. He turned around to go back inside, but stopped for a second to kick the wall.

Back at the hotel, she had her trouble to get Liam into the Hotel and up to his room. When she got him into the elevator, he dropped to the floor. “Liam, don’t do this to me. Don’t make me call Peter. In your state right now, you probably can’t even picture the trouble you’ll get. Please get up”, she begged him and pulled at his arms. When the doors opened with a Pling! he crawled out on all fours.  
“Where’s your keycard?”, she asked him. “Dunno”, he grunted. She couldn’t leave him like that. All the other lads were still out to party and he would probably choke on his own vomit. “Okay, you’re sleeping in my room. Come on”, she heaved him up and carried him to her hotel room. Since she could not get her keycard out of her pocket like that, she just let him fall back to the floor, since he couldn’t stand up on his own anymore. He would have enough bruises tomorrow anyway.  
“Come on, crawl in”, she said to him and pushed him in by his bum, which was quite hard. “Do you want to try to throw up first or go to bed right away?”, she asked and put her purse down. Liam who was feeling very, very sleepy all of a sudden, crawled into Lisa’s bed, who was still out with the other crew members herself. She would have to sleep somewhere else tonight. Charly quickly texted her to stay away from her room tonight or she might get puked on by Liam, no further explanations.  
“Now let’s get those shoes off”, she said and pulled off his big, leather boots and his pants in one go. She had seen the guys in just their underwear too many times to make it awkward for her. He just grunted, but was already half-asleep. “Do you want to take off your shirt to?”, she asked him, but he didn’t respond. He would puke on it anyway, so she let him keep it on. She stripped down to her underwear herself to get into her pajamas. “I neva seen you in youa undawea befo”, he suddenly mumbled and she turned around. “You will have forgotten about it by tomorrow anyways”, she shrugged her shoulders and kept on dressing herself. At that moment he turned around and puked on the floor. “Okay, I try not to take this personally”, she said. “Come on, let’s go to the bathroom”, she said in a little vomit-break and dragged him to the toilet by his arm. Of course, he stepped into his own pile of vomit before he collapsed in front of the toilet and gave it the tightest hug she had ever seen.  
She grabbed a towel herself, made it wet and tried her best to clean up Liam’s vomit. She also opened a window to get rid of the smell. As she came back to the bathroom, Liam was giving the toilet “everything he had”. “Thank god you don’t have hair to hold back”, she muttered to herself. She took a tiny towel from the shelf and soaked it with cold water. She then put on his forehead as he leaned back. “Goodnight, Liam”, she said and left the bathroom. He would probably puke all night and with staying closest to the toilet, he would be in good hands. She went to bed, but wouldn’t get much sleep, always listening with one ear on what’s going on in her bathroom.


	3. Chapter 3

“Charly?”, Liam woke her up by standing in front of her bed, his eyes barely open and the print of the toilet seat on the left side of his face. “Hey, how’re you doing, buddy? Everything out?”, she asked and rubbed her eyes. “What am I doing in your room?”, he asked and ran his fingers through his hair. “You don’t remember?”, she asked and felt like this wasn’t going to be an easy talk. “Sit down, Liam”, she said and pointed to the bed next to her. “Did we have sex?”, Liam asked her shocked. “Oh god no, love”, Charly said, a bit too fast almost. “Now try to concentrate. What is the last thing you remember?”, she asked him and turned to him, sitting cross-legged. “What? Why? What happened?”, he asked her skeptically. “Come on, Liam, be serious now. What is the last thing you remember? REALLY remember?”, she asked him again after rolling her eyes. “Okay, okay”, he resigned and started thinking. It was silent for a few moments. “I think, the last thing I can say for sure is that we went to that club after our concert. We scattered quite quickly and I got a beer…that’s about it”, he said and looked fine with himself. For now, she thought to herself.  
“Right, okay. Ehm…Liam, where’s your phone?”, she asked and he looked around the room. He leaned down to grab his pants, got it out and held it up. “Okay, now read the last text you have got”, Charly instructed him and felt her heart getting heavier. He was about to get his heart broken the second time in just 12 hours. “Where’d you go, man, did you hook up?”, he read out loud. “What?”, Charly was confused. “It’s from Louis”, Liam answered, but sounded just as confused. He didn’t understand what Charly was up to. “Then the next one”, Charly said and pulled up her knees to her chest. She wasn’t almost able to stand by and watch him getting his heart broken. “It’s from Sophia…”, he said and she could see his face changing as he read the message.  
He stared down on his phone in his hands, but by the movements of his eyes, she could see that he was not reading anymore, but processing. She didn’t dare to speak. A heavy silence hung in the room. “I thought it was a dream”, he finally said and the tone of his voice almost broke her heart. She didn’t know what to say and chewed on her lip nervously. He pressed his pointer and thumb onto his eyes. His upper body began to shake. “Oh, honey”, she said and sat down next to him, putting her arm around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry”, she said and rubbed his back while he cried. They sat like that for a few minutes. “You will get over her, there are SO MANY girls out there that would be delighted to be called your girlfriend and would say yes without batting an eye”, she tried to comfort him, but she knew how bad that sounded and nobody in his position wanted to hear such things. “But those girls are not her”, he said with a shaky voice. “I know, I know”, she kept on mumbling and rocked Liam from left to right to calm him down.  
After a while he sat back up and wiped his eyes. “Are you better?”, she asked him softly. “Not really”, he answered with a husky voice from crying. Charly just nodded. “I tell you what. Why don’t you take a shower, then we get to your room so you can change and then we get some breakfast?”, she suggested. “Okay”, Liam said, exhaled heavily and got up. As soon as she heard the water in the bathroom, she got up herself and got dressed. She brushed her hair and put it back in a messy bun. The next second, Liam came out of the shower in just his boxers. Charly had to admit, Liam had a really good looking body, but when her eyes arrived at his face, her mood changed from slightly turned on to feeling sorry. His sad puppy eyes were almost unbearable.  
“My shirt has vomit on it”, he said and held it up. “Yes, thank you. Let’s get you some fresh clothes”, she said and pushed his hand with the shirt back down. He put on his pants and shoes, grabbed his phone and followed Charly out of her room, still with no shirt on. As they went out the door, Charly bumped into Niall. “Oops sorry”, she said as she looked up. “Oh, hey Charly. What a shame you couldn’t come last night, it was loads of fun”, Niall said with a bright smile, which disappeared rather quickly as he saw Liam coming out of her room with no shirt on. “Oh, hey…Liam”, Niall said, his jaw clenching. “Hey man”, Liam nodded and went past the two to his room. “Are you going down for breakfast?”, Charly asked. “Yes, yes I am”, Niall said, still a bit thrown off by the situation. “Then I’ll meet you downstairs in a bit”, she said and followed Liam. Niall nodded and his eyes followed her steps. If he didn’t know it better, he would say the two did have sex last night, but…actually he didn’t know anything. He remembered her message from last night saying, she’s taking care of Liam because he was so drunk. Niall shook his head and continued his way down. His mind was probably playing tricks on him and also Charly had a boyfriend at home, which was already very annoying.  
Liam changed into clean clothes while Charly waited at the door. He put on a jumper and put the hood over his head because he felt like crap, not only because of the message from Sophia, but mostly that. “Charly? Can we maybe not mention this to the others? Especially the guys. They would pepper me with questions all day long and I really don’t want to talk about it”, Liam held her back. “Yes, of course. Don’t worry about it”, Charly waved him off. She turned around to leave, but he held her back. “And thank you for taking care of me”, Liam thanked her. “Don’t mentioned it, really”, Charly said and patted his arm. “Let’s get breakfast, I’m so hungry”, she said and went out the door. “I’m so sick, I can’t get anything down”, Liam said while following her. “Then just aspirin and water for you.”

“Morning”, Charly said as she sat down at the big round table next to Lisa and Lou. Liam took his seat across from her in between Harry and Zayn. She grabbed the coffee can and filled her cup right up. The normal amount of sleep she got on tour was never enough, but this night, sleep didn’t really exist. “Liam, you look like shit”, Louis said straight forward, which made the others turn their heads towards Liam. He looked up and straight to Charly with a look searching for help. “He’s just hungover. He was SO done last night, I had to carry him back to the hotel”, Charly stepped in which made all heads turn to her. “You were at the club?”, Harry asked. Niall, on his side, was following the conversation very interested.  
“What about your date?”, Louis asked. “It was great, but I wasn’t tired after that so I decided to meet up with you”, she replied and didn’t know why she wasn’t telling the truth. Maybe because she felt like an idiot and became very angry again when she thought about the message from Ethan. “I found Liam at the back entrance and decided to take him back to the hotel…for his own safety”, Charly kept on telling the story. “And what happened there?”, Niall couldn’t resist to ask. “He puked all over my room”, Charly said and pulled a face at the memory. “Oh Liam”, Lisa said disgusted, she really couldn’t stand the sight or the simple idea of vomit.”I did?”, Liam asked genuinely surprised. “Jap”, Charly nodded and took a sip from her coffee. “Thanks again for texting me to stay away from our room”, Lisa said to Charly. “Really all over your room?”, Louis asked and had to laugh. “Lads, can we please stop talking about vomit now. I’m trying to eat breakfast here”, Lou said and pointed at her full platter. “Sorry, Lou”, Charly apologized and got up to get herself something to eat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the first 3 chapters and thank you to the 2 guests that left kudos. Appreciate it =)
> 
> Have fun with the next one =)

While the band was out for their interviews and photoshoots and all the stuff they had to do to promote their shows, Charly stayed back in her hotel room to catch up on the finances. Her job as Paul’s assistant involved budget planning and the management of such, but also planning the band’s days and sometimes arranging interviews. And just like every other member of One Direction’s entourage, having an open ear for the boys and helping out where she’s needed. It was all chaos at first for her, the only thing she got “right” right away were the finances since she had a college degree in financial management. What are the odds to end up as the road cashier of a boyband? She always had pictured herself as an accountant in a big company or the tax offices, but never One Direction.  
She had spread out the bills on the table in front of her and the calculator to her right. She had just finished the expense report of the boys and leaned back. The message from Ethan still upset her. How could he cancel on her when they haven’t seen each other for two months? He had never come out to one the guys shows or just to see where Charly was working. She decided to call her best friend Dale that she knew since kindergarten. Dale was the ultimate gay best friend. A few uplifting words from him would make her feel better.  
She listened to the dial tone until she reached his voicemail. That was unusual for him. He always picked up his phone because he never let go of it. Well, maybe he was taking a bath. She shrugged her shoulders and collected the bills from the table. The reports were finished faster than she thought and so she had some time left before they had to leave for the venue for tonight. Since it was sunny and warm outside, she decided to go down to the pool and read. She put on shorts that went down to her knees and a wide shirt, grabbed her book and her bag and went down to the pool. It didn’t take her long to find Lisa and Lou. “Hi ladies”, she said and sat down on the empty chair at the pool. “How can you wear so much clothes when it’s that hot outside?”, Lisa asked Charly and put down her sunglasses for a quick look. “What? I’ve got short pants and a shirt”, Charly asked and looked down her body. “Yes, but…Charly, you look like one of those chubby, insecure girls on the beach that won’t go into the water without a wide shirt and long pants”, Lisa lectured her. She didn’t understand why Charly was hiding her body. If she recalled it correctly, she had never really seen her in her underwear. “That’s just the way I dress, I’m not insecure”, Charly defended herself. “If a girl dresses like that, she’s always insecure about her body, Love”, Lou joined in. “You know what, just shut up and let me read my book”, Charly said and got mad. She took out her ipod, concentrated on her book and ignored the other two.  
Later that day, when she came out of the shower before she went to bed, she caught herself scanning her body in the mirror. She never felt insecure about her body, at least she thought she wasn’t. That was just the way she dressed, but she had to admit, her style of clothing was influenced by her boyfriend Ethan. He always said to her that he liked her in baggy clothes, so you don’t see everything right away and she just believed him. He was her first boyfriend after all and she had no comparisons. She had met Ethan in college and was going out with him for 3 years now.  
She shook her head, blow-dried her hair, slipped in her pajamas and went to bed. A few hours later, it was still in the middle of the night, she woke up because of someone knocking at the door. Lisa didn’t hear it because she had some ear plugs in and a sleeping mask on. Charly got up slowly and wasn’t almost able to open her eyes. “Who’s there?”, she asked with a shouted whisper at the door before opening. “It’s Harry”, the person behind the door said and Charly opened it. “Harry, what happened? Why aren’t you asleep?”, she asked and still could barely open her eyes. “I just can’t fall asleep. Can I sleep on my favorite pillows?”, he asked and put on his puppy eyes. “Does it really have to be tonight, Harry? You know I always sleep on my belly, I can’t sleep well when you’re laying on me”, Charly responded. “Come on, please? Just until I have fallen asleep, then you can just roll me over”, he begged and his puppy eyes got even stronger. “Oh for the love of god, just get in”, she broke. “Thanks, love”, he said, kissed her on the cheek and hopped right into her bed. “Be quiet, Lisa is sleeping”, she shushed him, closed the door and went back to bed. “Move over”, she told him and got in. She got comfortable on her back and then Harry laid down on her. He wrapped his arms around her waist.  
“I can hear your heart beat”, he mumbled after a few moments. “Thank god, otherwise it would be very creepy for me to still talk to you”, she responded whispering. She could rather feel than actually hear him chuckle. “Goodnight Harry”, she said. “Goodnight, Charly”, he also said and she could hear how his breathing got slower and steadier. Her fingers run through his hair in a steady rhythm and she had to admit it calmed her down as well, although she thought she had been calm all along. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep and the two woke up in this position the next morning.  
Charly woke up by the buzzing and sound of her alarm clock on her phone. It did take quite an effort to reach it with this tall human on her, but she somehow managed to. She turned it off and with a quick side look she saw that Lisa was still sleeping. “Harry? Harry, wake up”, she said and ran her fingers through his hair again. He just grunted and hugged her tighter. At first, she caressed his cheek, but then started poking it until he opened his eyes. “Time to get up”, she said and had to admit he looked really cute with his sleep eyes. “Oops, sorry, I have drooled on you”, he said with a sleep voice and wiped his mouth. “Oh great, baby Harry”, she joked, but also was a bit engrossed. “Sorry”, he said again and sat up. “Ah, don’t worry, I wanted to wash it anyways”, she said and held the wet fabric away from her skin. She couldn’t manage to keep the disgusted facial expression off her face. “I better get going then. Thanks again for last night, was a great sleep”, Harry said and got up. She realized just now, he was just wearing boxers and a shirt. “Yeah, yeah, you’re welcome, but try not to make this a habit. A few naps every now and then are okay, but not whole nights. I can barely move right now”, she said while he went out. “Love you”, he said as a goodbye and was out the door. “Kids nowadays”, Charly mumbled to herself. Then she got up and could hear the cracking of her bones. “Oh god, ouch”, she whined and stretched. She also needed to wake up Lisa since she couldn’t hear or see anything.  
“Lisa? Wake up, it’s 6 am”, she said and pulled up her eye mask. “Huh?”, Lisa asked sleepy. Charly pointed to her eyes to make Lisa take the ear plugs out. “Oh, yeah”, Lisa mumbled and took them out. “It’s 6 am, time to get up”, Charly repeated and still held up the wet part of her shirt. “What’s up with that?”, Lisa asked and nodded towards Charly. “Harry drooled on it”, Charly explained roughly and went into the bathroom. “Oh…okay”, Lisa shrugged her shoulders and laid back down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you might think the thing with Harry is a bit strange, but I think it's really funny ;D


	5. Chapter 5

A week later, the band had shows in Rome. After tonight’s concert, they would have a day off and then their second concert at the venue because tickets had sold out so quickly. On the bus from the airport to the hotel, Charly sat next to Liam. “How you’re doing?”, she asked him. He had already told the boys about Sophia breaking up with him and they were incredibly supportive, but also very childish about it. Making jokes and silly comments on what Liam could do now with his newly won freedom.  
“Holding up okay”, he said and even achieved half a smile. The song half a heart started in Charlys head. She patted his hand and nodded. There was nothing else to say. The two had talked about it a lot in the past few days, especially before he had told the lads.  
At the hotel, Charly received a text message from Ethan. It was the first time she had heard from him since his last text calling off the skype-date. “When are you free tonight?”, she read in her head. For a split second she thought he finally had come to visit her, but he was just asking for another skype-date. “I’m done at 11 pm, so what about 11:45 pm?”, she texted back. The answer came immediately. “Great.” She didn’t know why, but she had to smile. She went to the receptionist, got the keys and handed them out to everybody. She felt so good that she wanted to called her besty Dale. She rang him up, but after just the second dial tone, she went right to voicemail. “That little fucker just sent me right to voicemail”, she said to her phone. “Who?”, Lou asked, who had just appeared right next to her, also waiting for the elevator. “Nobody”, Charly shook her head and put her phone back into her bag.  
Right after she had brought her luggage up to her room, she had to go back down to get to the venue with Paul to see if everything arrived okay. When they got back, she found Zayn and Liam working out with Mark between the tour busses. “Don’t come to close, Charly, or he’ll hit you again”, Zayn shouted as he saw her coming which brought him a punch from Liam on his upper arm. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay away. I love my boobs too much”, she laughed. “When you see Niall, can you send him out, Love?”, Mark asked her. “Hyperactive kid, coming right at ya, buddy”, she pointed at him and went inside.  
“So? Where’s the party happening tonight?”, Niall asked around as Charly came in. “Again? Can you not stay in for just one night?”, she asked and grabbed a bottle of water off the table. “I can stay in when I’m dead. Are you coming this time?”, he asked. “No, I have another skype-date with my man”, she noted. Maybe it will actually take place this time, she thought to herself. “Again?”, he asked and sighed frustrated. “Yes, people do that when they’re in a relationship. They talk to each other”, she explained to him like he was a little child. “We talk all the time, does that mean we have a relationship?”, he asked and pulled up his eyebrows quickly several times in a row. Charly opened her mouth and closed it again without saying something. Was he flirting with her?  
“ANYWAY…”, she said and threw the bottle of water she had in her hands to Niall. “Mark wants to see you outside. Your time to sweat.” “Yeah, gotta work on my bum. I want to have an ass like Kim Kardashian”, he said with his joking low voice. “Sorry, but that ass is already married to her”, said Lisa while reading her magazine. “Nice one”, Charly complimented her on her joke. She sat down next to her and started playing Candy Crush. “What’s going on? Nobody has work to do?”, Paul came in and saw Lisa, Lou and Charly sitting around playing with their phones or reading magazines. “Lisa?”, he asked. “Clothes already laid out”, she said without looking up. “Lou?”, he went on. “Everything set up, no hair to brush around”, she replied without looking up from her phone. “Charly?”, he asked her. “Expense reports done, interview list sent and appointments confirmed”, she said without looking up from her game. “The amount of respect in this room cannot even be measured right now”, Paul sighed and went back out. The three ladies looked up and as their eyes met, they burst into laughter.

“So, who’s coming?”, Louis asked and grabbed his phone from the table. They all had gathered after the show and were about to head out to party. “Just a second”, Lou said and finished a text. “What about you, Liam?”, Zayn asked. “No, I think I’m gonna sit this one out”, Liam waved off. “Charly has her date”, Louis pointed at her while going through the little crowd of people. “Yes, and I need to go now”, she said and grabbed her purse. “Okay, then we’re good to go”, Harry smashed his hands together and got up. “Wait for me, I’m coming too”, Lisa rushed up behind the clothes rack. “How can you even walk in those shoes?”, Niall asked and gave the shoes a horrific look. “They’re super comfortable”, she defended her shoes and also looked down at her feet. “You look like a hooker”, Louis commented. “Dude, un-nece-ssary!”, Lisa said and pointed out the syllables with the pointer and thumb pressed together in front of her. “But if you buy me a drink, then I might forgive you”, she winked at him and went past him out the door. “If you buy the first round, then we might all forgive you”, Niall said, snapped his fingers in front of Louis’ face and walked out imitating Lisa’s walk as a joke.  
Charly arrived in her hotel room just in time and quickly turned on her laptop. She was glad, Lisa was out with the rest, so she could talk to Ethan openly about everything. She really needed to talk to him about some stuff, especially why he called so rarely. As soon as she had started her Skype, he already rang her. She was totally nervous all of a sudden. “Hi, baby”, she said as Ethan’s face appeared on her screen. “Hey, sweetie”, Ethan said and smiled, but it looked a bit fake. “What are you up to?”, she asked him and twisted her fingers under the table. “Not much, working all the time”, he said. “You?”, he asked in return. “Also working much, it’s very hectic, but the people are nice, we’re really good friends now. You should really come out some time and meet everybody”, Charly suggested. “Yeah…about that…that’s not gonna happen, sweetie”, Ethan said. “Excuse me?”, Charly asked confused. “I really don’t want to lead you on any longer”, Ethan began. “What do you mean? Leading me on…were you leading me on?”, she asked totally confused now. This date was so not going the way she had planned it. “Yes, yes I was. Since you’ve been gone, actually. God, it feels so good to finally get that out”, Ethan said and smiled relieved. “Oh, I’m happy YOU’RE doing okay”, Charly couldn’t help, but being sarcastic about it. Was her mind playing tricks on her? This couldn’t actually be happening right now.  
“See, it hasn’t been that good between us lately anyway and when you left…well, I kinda met someone”, Ethan confessed and he made it sound like it was her fault. “You met someone? W-What? Why? Who? Is she from work?”, Charly shot the questions at him, her head was spinning. “Does it really matter, sweetie?”, Ethan smiled condescending and shook his head. “Don’t call me sweetie!”, she spoke up. Charly was furious and out of her mind. “How can you do this to me?”, she asked and felt the tears rush to her eyes. “You make it sound like it’s all my fault”, Ethan said and pulled a face. “IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT, for god’s sake”, Charly screamed out. Her vision started to blur because of all the tears in her eyes. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m the one to blame here”, he said it like taking the high road. “I-I…I…”, she stuttered, but couldn’t get anything out, she was so shocked…and embarrassed. It was silent between them, nobody was saying anything. And what made it even worse was what happened next.  
“Have you finished, darling? How did she take it?”, someone came from Ethan’s bathroom and went up to Ethan to hug him from behind. Weirdly enough she knew that voice just too well. “Well, actually she’s still…”, “DALE?!”, Charly said in shock. “Oops…well, since it’s out now…Hey sweetie”, Dale said and waved into the camera. “DON’T CALL ME SWEETIE!!”, Charly was actually screaming now. “Okaaaay, a bit loud, don’t you think?”, Dale asked her and pulled up his eyebrow. She couldn’t help but feeling indignant. “How…how…dare you to talk to me like this? You’re fucking my boyfriend”, and as she said it out loud, it became even more real. Her boyfriend was fucking her gay best friend. Her male, gay best friend. She was actually feeling sick and her head was spinning.  
“So, basically, what I was trying to tell you the whole time, Charly…it’s over and I’m with Dale now…”, Ethan wrapped up the past few minutes. “Yes, I kinda got that”, Charly swallowed and her mouth was dry. “But I really want to stay friends with you, it were 3 lovely years anyway, right?”, Ethan made a kind offer and it was now Charly’s turn to pull up her eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”, she asked. “We get it, you need some time to process that, it’s a lot to take in, but don’t worry sweetie, you will find someone…I’m sure you will”, Dale tried to comfort her and smiled into the camera. She used to love that smile, now it made her sick. She took a deep breath and then looked straight into the camera. “I don’t want to be friends with you…in fact, I don’t ever wanna hear from you again. You’re dead to me!”, her voice got louder with every word and the she smashed the screen of her laptop down.  
She always thought if something like that would happen to her, she would immediately cry, but she was just angry. Like hate pulsating in every vain of her body and she was literally seeing red. She jumped off the chair, walked towards the bed, took her pillow and screamed as loud as she could while she pressed it against her face, but that wasn’t enough. Charly laid down on her bed, again, screamed in her pillow and hit the bed uncontrollably with her feet like an angry child. And she probably acted like one right now, but she didn’t care.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a long chapter. Hope you like it!

It took her a while, but she finally heard the banging on her door. She got up and for a split second, she thought it was Ethan, but that was clearly not the case. He was at home fucking her best friend Dale. She rushed up to the door and opened it quickly. “What?”, she asked harshly and stared right into Liam’s shocked face. “Is everything alright? I heard you screaming ‘til the end of the corridor. I thought someone broke in and was raping you”, he looked honestly concerned and ready to attack. “I kinda got fucked, so you’re right there”, Charly couldn’t help but being sarcastic about it, it was her way to deal with things. Liam looked over her shoulder to scan the room. “No one’s in here”, she answered his unspoken question. “But something happened”, Liam wasn’t asking a question. Her face looked like she had seen a ghost or something. Charly didn’t feel like talking about it, but she had been there for Liam as Sophia had broken up with him about a week ago, she knew that he would understand. She took a deep breath and looked up. “Ethan wanted to talk to me tonight to tell me that…he ends the relationship with me because he ‘met’ someone new”, she explained, but couldn’t find the heart to go into more detail, but Liam didn’t need them.  
“Oh, Charly, I’m so sorry”, he said and hugged her tight, which brought the tears back to her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry over that jerk. “Come on, let’s go”, he said after he let go of her. “Where? I really don’t feel like going out”, she said and shook her head. “Who said something about going out? Let’s get a drink. What you need right now, is to get really pissed”, Liam said and pulled at her arm. “I’m already pissed, but okay”, she replied and let him guide her to the elevators. “Wait, I forgot my purse”, she said and wanted to go back to her room. “Don’t worry, we’ll just go downstairs to the hotel bar and we’ll charge it on the room”, Liam held her back and at just that moment the doors of the elevator slid open. “But I’m not dressed for the hotel bar”, she said and looked down on her short jeans shorts. “Me neither”, he said and they both looked at his baggy sweatpants and his oversized shirt.   
As they were about to enter the bar, Charly looked around and saw that the few people that were there, all looked dressed up and she suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Also she didn’t know if she could keep it together. “Liam, I really don’t feel like going in there”, she held him back at the entrance. “Okay, then just wait a second”, he said, gave her a reassuring smile and went in. After just a few moments, he came back with a bottle of what looked like whiskey or tequila and two glasses. “Come on”, he said and grabbed her hand. He led her through the lobby and through the doors next to the elevators, right to the stairway. “What do you think?”, he asked and opened his arms wide. “Perfect”, she smiled and sat down with him on the stairs. “I found this place earlier today. Someone rarely comes by”, Liam said, opened the bottle and poured some in the two glasses. “Cheers!”, they clinked glasses.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”, he asked after their first sip. Charly wasn’t used to too much alcohol. “What is this?”, she asked and pulled a face. “Tequila. You didn’t answer”, he pointed out. “Do you like Tequila? I’m not sure, but I think I can get used to it”, she said. “You’re dodging”, he said and took another sip. “Isn’t that answer enough? I don’t want to talk about it”, she noted. “Okay. Then we’ll just sit here and get drunk”, he shrugged his shoulders. She took a second to think about it, he was really kind to her and he deserved to know at least a tiny bit, why she was so upset. “Ethan’s gay now, that’s way he left me”, she said while staring at the wall and took another sip. She pulled a face at the taste, but better than nothing. Getting drunk was her best option right now and at least she was not alone.  
Liam almost spilled his drink as she told him. “He’s what?”, he asked shocked. She shrugged her shoulders and emptied her cup. “Fill me up, Payne”, she said and held her glass up to him. He poured the brown liquid and filled her cup right up. “That’s a though one”, he said, pulling his eyebrows up.”You don’t say”, she said sarcastically. The two kept drinking without talking.  
“I kinda should have known”, Charly said after a few minutes of drunk silence. “There had been signs, I guess”, she continued. Liams head fell over to her side like it was too heavy for him to control. “When we had sex, he really loved it when I put my finger in his bum”, she recollected. “Why would you do that?”, Liam asked and pulled a face. “He really liked it and…oh”, she suddenly stopped. “Oh my god“, she sighed. „What? What just happened?“, Liam asked confused. „He always called me Charly, never Charlotte. AH-AND he loved me in baggy jeans and a wide t-shirt. I thought it was cute, but he was just turning me into a boy”, she laughed, but that laughter quickly turned into tears. “I am so dumb, Liam. I…”, she whined and got interrupted by her own sobbing. “Oh no, you’re not. Come here”, he said and pulled her in his arms. Now she legitimately started crying. All she had held back the whole evening came out now, right onto Liam’s shirt. “So-horry, I’m ma-haking your shirt a-all wet”, she sobbed at his chest. “Oh, don’t worry about it”, he wiped away her concerns.  
After a while she sat back up and her head was spinning. “I turned my boyfriend gay”, Charly sighed sadly with a red nose and swollen eyes. “You know it doesn’t work that way”, Liam told her. “I know”, she resigned and looked down at her hands. Her vision blurred and she had trouble focusing. “But what should I think? I mean, I was with him for 3 years and now he left me for my best friend”, Charly told him. “Wait what? You said before that he was gay”, Liam recalled and had serious problems keeping his head up. The bottle was almost empty and that took its toll now. “My best friend is a guy, my gay best friend…well, now ex-best friend…but still very gay with my now gay ex-boyfriend…hand me the bottle, Liam”, she said and strechted out her arm. He handed it to her without any further comment, but with his eyes wide open. Even for his drunk and blurred mind, this was quite a shocker.  
“Okay, to wrap this all up”, he said, twirled his finger in the air and that made him almost fall over, “the two are douchbags which you will never speak to again. But believe me one thing, love: you are not turning guys gay”, she almost didn’t understand his gibberish. She shook her head. “I cannot believe you, Liam. That’s the only experience with men I’ve got. Guy has sex with me, turns gay”, she listed. “Oh shut up, that’s total bullshit, you’re beautiful. Every guy would be happy to have sex with you”, Liam said to her with big gestures. “Every guy? Even you?”, she joked. “Yeah, why not”, he shrugged his shoulders. Charly looked at him with big eyes for a few seconds then burst into laughter. “What?”, Liam asked.  
“Oh come on, I’ve seen your girlfriend. You can’t tell me you like things like that?”, she said and lifted her shirt. Liam stared at her half-naked upper body. He couldn’t hold perfectly still because of the alcohol. “What? Boobs? I like those things VERY much“, he finally said. “Oh shut up”, she laughed and covered his eyes with her hand while letting her shirt back down. As she wanted to take another sip of the bottle, she found it empty. “Damn, did we drink this whole thing up?”, she looked at with big eyes. “Seems like it”, Liam said and actually had to hick. “Okay, I think it’s time we go to bed”, she mumbled and pulled herself off the stairs by the banisters and swayed dangerously. “Whoa”, she said out loud and put her arms out to balance. She was totally hammered. “Help me up”, Liam almost screamed at her although she was literally standing next to him. She turned around and grabbed his hand. She pulled as hard as she could. “God, you’re heavy. Help a little, will ya?”, she grunted and as he pushed himself off the stairs they almost fell over to the other side. He held her up just the last second and they hit the wall, her head smashed against it. “Ouch”, she pressed her eyes together but had to laugh. His face was very close and she could smell the Tequila on his breath. “Why do I always get hurt when you’re around?”, she muttered and looked up. She had problems focusing on his face. “Cause I’m a bad guy”, he said in a low, husky voice. She stared at his eyes and had to swallow. His face came even closer. Charly couldn’t tell if it was from affection or just the alcohol giving him problems to hold his balance. Her mouth went dry and she tried to swallow again.  
The door swung open and a couple in their mid-thirties stumbled into the staircase. They seemed also very drunk. “Scusi”, the man said and they left. Liam took a step back and got a bit out of balance. “We should go back up”, she said and supported herself on the wall while walking towards the door. Sure enough they ran right into the guys coming back from the club. As insecure Charly was about her outfit at first down in the hotel bar, the much it didn’t matter to her now. “Hey guys”, she shouted right through the lobby and stumbled towards Lisa and Lou. They were drunk too and Lisa carried her shoes in her hand. “BIG NEWS you guys”, Charly said and put her arms up in the air. Niall hung on Zayn because he had some trouble walking straight. “I’m a single lady now”, she said. “Wow, how crappy are your dates?”, Louis commented. “Oh, darling, sweetie, love, are you okay?”, Lisa asked and put her face between her hands to make Charly look her in the eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine…and drunk”, Charly chuckled. Now she could laugh. She didn’t know about tomorrow, but she didn’t care at the moment. “I’m pretty pissed as well”, Liam raised his hand in the back. “Hey gurl, does that mean you come party with us now?”, Harry said and danced in front of her. “Yeah, totally”, Charly said and joined in. She had never experienced such a low level of consciousness of herself, but also, she had never been that drunk. “But not tonight, you’re all pretty pissed”, Lou said and grabbed both Harry’s and Charly’s hand to pull them towards the elevators. “What time is it?”, Lisa asked. “About 3 in the morning”, Zayn said after quite a long look at his phone.  
As the elevator came, the all squeezed in and waited for it to arrive at their floor. The shortness of fresh air all of a sudden didn’t do so well with Charly. “Uh, god, I feel sick”, she said and went all pale. “God, when do these doors open?!”, Louis jokingly screamed and banged against the closed doors. “If she throws up, I’ll join in”, Niall mumbled and talked with such a strong Irish accent that almost no one understood him. As the doors finally slid open, they all scattered quickly. “Are you alright, Charly?”, Liam asked and put his hand on her back. “No”, she said truthfully. “Come on, let’s get you to your room quickly. I don’t know what you had, but probably way to much of that”, Lisa said and guided her to her room. Liam was following right behind to make sure Charly was okay, but also because his room was next to hers. “It was half a bottle of Tequila”, he told Lisa. “And you took care of the other half?”, she asked and shook her head smiling. “Oh the kids have found a bottle of alcohol and had some fun”, she said to Lou staggering by. “Tequila? Lord have mercy”, Lou said and put up her folded hands like praying to god as she walked inside her room. “Does that mean I’m taking care of her all by myself?”, Lisa asked sarcastically. “I can help you”, Liam said and dropped against the wall. “Yes, you will be a big help”, she rolled her eyes. “Come on, man”, Harry said and guided Liam into his hotel room by his shoulders.  
“I think I’m gonna throw up”, Charly said and held her hand in front of her mouth. “Then we better get in”, Lisa said and quickly pulled out her keycard to open the door. Charly immediately pushed it open and ran to the toilet. As soon as she saw it, the vomit burst out of her mouth. “Oh sweetie”, Lisa said at the door. That word made Charly even sicker. She had no memory of how her hair came up to a ponytail, but all of a sudden she wasn’t puking on them anymore. “Darling, the next time you think about drinking Tequila…just don’t do it, okay?”, Lisa said and rubbed her back. Charly just nodded her head. “Half a bottle…un-nece-ssary”, Lisa kept talking. “Shut up”, Charly pressed out. “Oh yeah, right, sorry, but really, no more Tequila for you, young lady”, Lisa ended and kept rubbing her back until Charly felt empty enough to go to her bed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the clicks and the kudos and thanks to Alykat14 for her comment.
> 
> Hope you like this one as much as the others =)

“Ahhh”, Charly groaned and held her head. She couldn’t open her eyes; just the tiniest bit of light hurt them. She pulled her blanket over her head and turned around. “Oh, you’re awake, Darling”, Lisa whispered. “It’s noon, you should get up and eat something”, Lisa suggested and sat down on her bed. “No, thank you”, Charly murmured into her pillow and her voice was raspy from the alcohol. “Come on, you need to eat something, you will feel better”, Lisa said again and pulled Charly’s blanket back. “I just want to die”, Charly muttered. “Because of your headache or what had happened last night?”, Lisa asked and sounded pitiful. Charly recollected her memories of her evening. She remembered that she drank A LOT of Tequila last night with Liam, but why? Because her now ex-boyfriend Ethan was sleeping with her ex best friend Dale, who was a guy. “Oh god”, she groaned and tried to crawl deeper into her pillows. She wanted to hide from the world right now. “Did this really happen?”, she asked after a few moments of silence. “I don’t know what exactly happened, but you sure got wasted last night on Tequila…with Liam”, Lisa recollected. “What do you know?”, Charly asked and slowly sat up. “When we were coming back last night, you ran to us in the lobby and happily announced that you are, and I quote, ‘a single lady’ now”, Lisa said. “Okay, and did I tell why?”, Charly kept asking. “No, but depending on how pissed you were, it must have been a though one”, Lisa said. “Nothing further?”, Charly wanted to make sure she didn’t embarrass herself even more than she probably already had. “Not yet, but I’m dying to find out. Especially what you did with Liam”, Lisa said and winked at her. “I just got wasted with Liam, he had an open ear for me just like I did for him when Sophia broke up with him. And the thing with Ethan…well that IS a tough one”, Charly said and rubbed her face. She went on to tell Lisa the whole story, the whole embarrassing, pathetic story.  
“Wow”, Lisa said as Charly had ended. “Now I want a bottle of Tequila for myself”, Lisa looked just as shocked as Charly felt. “Liam just took me for a drink and that’s pretty much where my memory of last night ends”, Charly ended her story. “I go get a shower and then I try to eat something, but I can’t promise anything”, she said, got up and walked very slowly towards the bathroom.

Since the boys had their day off today in Rome, some were staying at the hotel pool like Liam, Harry and Lou. Charly and Lisa decided to go out to eat with Niall and Louis. “I’m so hungry, I don’t know what to eat first”, Lisa said while looking at the menu. “Oh shut up”, Charly grunted and rested her head on her hands. “You and Liam let it crack last night, huh?”, Louis asked and jiggled his eyebrows. “To be honest, I don’t remember”, Charly mumbled. Niall watched her closely. “You’re really not used to alcohol, huh?”, he asked her and mimed her position since he was sitting across from her. “Yeah, what happened last night? Was it your date? You told us you’re single now?”, Louis recalled last night. “Really? You are?”, Niall asked and had to remind himself not to smile that bright. “Apparently, I don’t remember telling you guys, but yes, Ethan broke up with me last night”, Charly confirmed. “What did you do that he breaks up with you?”, Louis asked. “Who said it was my fault?”, Charly raised herself too quickly and strained her eyes for a moment. “Yeah, you have no idea, what that jerk did…or better said who”, Lisa defended her friend. “Come on, now you have to tell me who he boned”, Niall said, whose interest was caught by Lisas wording.  
“Go on, tell them, they’ll find out anyway. Let’s just get it over with”, Charly allowed her to spill the beans and buried her face in her hands again. “Okay, darling, you said I could. Well this poor ladies jerk of a now ex-boyfriend fucked her male best friend and had decided that now is a good time to come out as gay”, Lisa told the two and their jaws dropped. “He did not!”, Louis screamed out. “Louis, voice”, Charly said and pressed her fingers to her temple. “Oh my god, that’s a really tough one”, Niall said and felt really sorry for Charly, but this was almost too crazy to be true. “Tell me about it”, Charly grunted. “No wonder you got so pissed last night”, Louis said and also felt sorry for Charly, but it was also really funny, to be honest.  
Charly skipped dinner and just watched everybody eat. Afterwards they went out to go a bit sightseeing. She fell a bit behind while Lisa and Louis took pictures and pointed at houses and sculptures. “Hey, again I’m sorry for what happened to you”, Niall walked next to Charly. “Thank you, Niall. But don’t come to close, I might turn you gay. I do this those days around”, Charly joked and tried to smile, but it wouldn’t quite come to her. “Is it this time of year again?”, Niall joined in. “Yes, apparently”, Charly said with a serious face. “Oh come on, you will have to smile at some point”, Niall said and put his arm around her shoulders. “Smile for me, Charly, SMILE FOR ME!”, he almost screamed in the middle of the street and it was really embarrassing for Charly, but also funny. So she gave him the best smile she could put on right now. “There you go!”, he said and hugged her while walking and they almost fell over. “Guys, come on”, Louis shouted towards them. He was already quite a way in front of them. Niall took Charly’s hand as they walked quickly towards Lisa and Louis.  
As Charly looked around she saw that some people, mostly girls, were already staring and some got really excited. In her head appeared a countdown, going 5…4…3…2…1…”Oh my god, Niall, can I take a picture with you?”, the first girl approached him and Charly immediately let go of his hand. “Niall, me too”, the next one said. “Oh my god, there’s Louis”, another one said and scooped off, taking about 5 girls with her.  
In just about 3 minutes they were surrounded by dozens of girls asking for pictures and autographs. One or two also asked for pictures with Lisa and herself, but she didn’t feel like taking pictures right now, but she also didn’t want to come off as a prick. So she kept her glasses on and was okay with looking at least just half a prick.  
At night they all went out for a group dinner and Charly was able to eat again. She was actually starving. Everyone had a good time and she was just sitting there like a party pooper, looking all sad and not paying attention. Niall was sitting next to her and gave her a few reassuring smiles and pattings on her back.  
Niall had hoped to get into a conversation with Charly, get to know her better and to let her know that he was there for her when she needed him, but she wasn’t really up for conversation, so he kept it low profile. Most of the group wanted to go out and get a look of the city at night, maybe grab a few drinks, but Charly said she rather stayed in her hotel room and also Liam and Lou stayed back. Lou, because she had a skype date with her daughter Lux who was at home with her daddy. “But don’t you come back gay, Lou. You know, that’s what skype does nowadays”, Louis said to her. “Ahhh, Louis, shut up”, almost everybody said at the table. “You’re such a prick, man”, Harry said to him, but wasn’t too serious about it, though he felt bad for Charly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite a long chapter and it gets steamier ;)  
> ENJOY!

Charly, Liam and Lou went back to the hotel escorted by Paul and Mark. Charly went right up to her room and took a shower. She still felt a bit dizzy from her hangover and like the alcohol hasn’t completely gotten out of her system yet. She wasn’t in the mood to dry her hair and just rubbed them half-dry with the towel. She got dressed in a top and leggings because she was about to go to bed. This day couldn’t get any better or any worse, so where’s the point in staying up.  
Charly’s phone vibrated. She picked it up and clicked on the little facebook symbol that had appeared at the top of the screen. The site loaded and what she saw almost made her throw up again. “Ethan Atkins is now in a relationship with Dale Moiser”. Even worse were the comments below. “Oh god, poor charly, does she know?” or “weird for charly, huh? did somebody already tell her that her vanny turns men gay? :D”. Charly’s vision blurred and the tears started running down her cheeks. She had forgotten to turn the alert off on Ethan. She threw her phone on the bed.  
She stood there in the middle of the room and felt so lonely. All the anger she had felt last night had now changed into pure sadness and the feeling of humiliation. “Oh god”, she cried out and sank into a squatting position. She buried her face in her hands and cried. She let all the tears flow that she had held back for the last 24 hours.  
She couldn’t say how long she had rested in that position, but she suddenly felt very claustrophobic. She needed to get out of this room. Charly grabbed the keycard from the desk and just ran out. She almost ran down the stairs, went through the lobby and out to the pool. Charly found the pool area deserted and gladly sat down on the edge of the pool, rolled up the legs of her leggings and hung her feet in the cold water.  
What she didn’t see was Liam lying just a few meters away on a pool chair in the dark, also needing some time to himself. As he heard someone softly sobbing, he looked up and saw Charly be the pool. He got up and almost silently walked over to her. “Is this seat taken?”, he asked and Charly jumped a little. “Liam, you scared me, I thought I was alone”, she said and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It was a bit embarrassing for her to cry in front of Liam. Because of the Tequila orgy she had forgotten that she had already done that before.  
“The question if you’re doing alright would be a bit un-nece-ssary, as Lisa would say”, he said and also hung is feet in the water. He had no shoes around and his sweatpants were rolled up. “It kinda hit me before. I’m still in the process of realizing it, I guess”, Charly shrugged her shoulders. “I think you’re holding up pretty amazing. I mean, I’m going through some stuff at the moment, but not even comparable to your situation”, he said and wanted to compliment her, but she didn’t see it like that. “I could easily live without that ‘situation’”, she said and moved her feet in the water slowly back and forth. Liam didn’t know what to say to that. He knew everything that he could say would sound stupid and useless.  
“I think the worst thing about it, is…”, she started, but stopped because she didn’t know if he even would want to hear it. “What?”, he asked and poked her shoulder with his to get her to continue talking. “The worst thing about this is not the fraud itself, it’s that he still makes me feel like I wasn’t enough woman for him. That I am not beautiful and ‘female’ enough so that he turned gay. And before you say anything, I know it doesn’t work that way, but that’s how I feel”, she explained and looked down. She knew how stupid she sounded and felt embarrassed enough than to bear with his pitiful look.  
“I told you that already last night”, he said and leaned over to her. “What?”, she looked over. “That it doesn’t work that way and that you’re beautiful”, he almost whispered now and she couldn’t keep her eyes off his lips. “Oh…I don’t remember that”, she said quietly. “That’s why I’m here to remind you”, he whispered and his face came even closer. She looked up and stared right into his eyes. Now it was his turn to look at her mouth and she instinctively licked her lips. The next second his soft lips laid on hers. She closed her eyes and her skin tingled. He put his hand on her cheek and pulled her closer into the kiss.  
She softly moaned against his lips as his tongue entered her mouth. Her hand brushed through his hair and rested in his neck, caressing his skin with her thumb. He slowly pushed her down until she felt the cold stones in her back. “Liam?”, she asked between kisses. “Mhm?”, he moaned. “Should we really do this?”, she asked as he kissed down her neck. “Do you want to?”, he asked but didn’t stop. She took a second to think about it, though it was hard to concentrate. “Uhm…yeah, kind of”, she mumbled and closed her eyes as Liam kissed back up her neck. “Kind of?”, Liams face appeared in front of hers again. The only light they had was from the pool.  
“Well, I want to, but I don’t want to be rude and just ‘demand’ it”, Charly said and blushed. Thank god, it was too dark for him to see. “I’m basically in your knickers by now, so you’re not the one who’s being rude”, Liam chuckled and kissed her again. He fumbled at her waistband. She put her arms around his neck and played with the short hair at the back of his head. “Do you want to get a bit more comfortable?”, he asked. “Yes, but let’s get away from the pool lights”, Charly said and got up as Liam got off of her. He took her hand and led her to one of the long pool chairs in the back of the terrace. She pulled down her leggings and stepped out of them. “Should I just lay down or…?”, she asked and felt very nervous. “That’s usually how it works”, Liam smiled and she lay down. “If I wouldn’t know better, I’d say you never had sex before”, Liam said. He had noticed how nervous she has gotten. “Well, it’s been a while and I don’t have too much trust in my skills after, you know, my boyfriend is gay now”, she joked to distract Liam, but also herself from her nervousness. “Hey, if you don’t want to do this, you can say so, okay? I’m not forcing you or anything”, Liam again made sure that both of them wanted this. “Let’s not overtalk this, okay?”, she said and stretched out her arms towards him. He stepped out of his sweatpants and took off his sweater.  
He lay down on her, his face close to hers. “Hey”, he whispered. “Hey”, Charly said and looked deep into his eyes. She couldn’t almost see Liam because it was so dark in that corner of the terrace, but that’s how she wanted it. “Don’t mean to be rude, but…you’re on birth control, aren’t you? ‘Cause I don’t have any condoms on me”, he asked. “Yes, I am, don’t worry”, she quickly replied. She felt Liam’s fingers pulling aside her knickers and at the next second she felt him slowly thrusting into her. She gasped for air and closed her eyes. It felt really good.  
His right arm lay next to her head while the left hand got under her shirt, searching for her boob. “Oh”, she let out as he grabbed it. He slowly picked up the pace and she spread her legs a bit wider so he could go deeper. “Oh, that’s good”, he moaned at her ear. “God, yes”, she also said. Her mouth found his and her tongue slipped in and out of his mouth. He bit her lip which sent little showers of pleasure down her spine down to where the real pleasure was happening.  
She had to remind herself that she was at an almost public place and could not be loud of some sort. So as she felt the pleasure and warm feeling in her stomach getting bigger and bigger, she put her own hand over her mouth. “What are you doing?”, Liam asked a bit out of breath while thrusting into her. “Keeping myself from being too loud”, she quickly mumbled and put her hand back on her mouth. “Oh, that sounds dirty. Let me help you with that”, he said, took her hand away and instead put his mouth on hers. Charly now openly moaned into his mouth, holding onto his upper arms and moving her hips towards him. He couldn’t help but moan into her mouth as well as he felt her flexing around him.  
“Liam”, she gasped and her grip got tighter. He moved even faster. “Liam…Liam…Liam”, she moaned and bit her lip not to be too loud, but as she came, she knew she couldn’t hold it back. So she grabbed his face and pressed her lips onto his to moan inside his mouth. The way she tightened around his member made him cum as well.  
Both were out of breath and he rested his forehead on hers. “That was good…really, really good”, he gasped. “Yes, it was. Thank you”, she said out of breath. “No, thank YOU”, he replied and had a tired smile on his face. “Let’s just say, we thank each other”, Charly stated and he nodded in agreement. He pulled himself out of her and got up. He quickly put on his pants and handed her the leggings. She put them on and got up. She rearranged her top and looked up. “We should go back to our rooms”, she quickly said before it could become awkward. She went back to the pool to grab her keycard that was still laying there. “Liam, I hope it’s not awkward between us now. It was really nice, but we shouldn’t do this again. We’re working together after all”, she said. “Yeah, totally”, Liam nodded, but didn’t sound so sure. “We were just two people that got dumped and we…helped each other getting better”, Charly tried to find an explanation for what had just happened. “We are friends and we were there for each other, it’s that simple”, he said and Charly nodded. “Right, we’re friends. Friends are there for each other and help each other when they’re feeling sad…and we were both sad…very sad”, Charly continued. “Very sad”, Liam nodded.  
“So…thanks, my friend”, Charly patted his arm and as soon as she did that she knew how awkward that was. “Okay, I-I better get upstairs. I should get some sleep”, she said and pointed towards the door. She walked a few steps and stopped as she saw Liam following her at the corner of her eye. “What are you doing?”, she asked him. “Going…up to my room?”, he asked rather than answered. “No, no, no. We can’t go in there together, people would know. Give me a few seconds to go ahead”, she said and he had to laugh. “Shut up and wait a few seconds, okay?”, she said and knew how stupid she sounded, but got on going towards the elevators. She pressed the button and waited.  
“So we meet again”, Liam suddenly appeared next to her. “What? I waited. Why am I to blame when the elevators are slow?”, he said as she rolled her eyes. “Well, we need to work on that”, Charly said. “Work on that? Does that mean you want it to happen again?”, Liam asked a bit surprised. “I…We…I…shut up”, she stuttered and got into the elevator that had just arrived. She pressed the button for her floor and looked up at the digital screen, showing the passengers what floor they’re on. Liam leaned against the wall next to her with that knowing smile on his face. They silently walked next to each other to their rooms. “Good night, Charly”, he said as he stuck his keycard into the door. “Good night, Liam”, she said and did so as well. As she was halfway through the door, a smile appeared on her face out of nowhere.  
“Hey Darling, where have you been?”, Lisa asked, sitting on her bed. Charly had totally forgotten about her didn’t know that she was already back. “I-I was down by the pool, getting a bit of fresh air”, she said. It was her intention at first after all. “Did you have a swim?”, Lisa asked. “I got a bit wet, but nothing major”, Charly said and really had to bite down on her lip to not smile about her own comment. “And do you feel better now?”, Lisa asked further questions. “Yeah, I do actually. It…cleared my head”, she said and went into the bathroom to clean herself up. She came back out and went straight to bed. She put her phone on the nightstand and turned off the light by her bed. “Hey”, Lisa said and for a second Charly thought she knew. “you’re smiling. It’s nice to see you smile again”, Lisa said and smiled herself. “Good night, Liz”, Charly said, smiling as well and Lisa turned off the light on her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think about Liam and Charly's little "adventure" =)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to all the readers. Hope you keep reading it :D
> 
> Please tell me what you think about the story and thanks to Alykat15 for her comment.
> 
> To look at the link you have to copy and paste it out, I don't know how to make it work in here, sorry!
> 
> Enjoy!

“You don’t have to do that”, Charly said and walked down the road next to Lisa. Lisa was on her way to pick up some new stage clothes for the band by an Italian designer that had made a deal with the management for the boys to wear their stuff. It was Lisas idea to combine that with a little shopping spree for Charly. “Stop that. The best way to get over a break-up is to get new clothes…oh, and Lou is looking for a new hair color for you, she will dye your hair later this afternoon”, Lisa said and checked the numbers on the doors while walking past them. “Dye? I don’t want to dye my hair”, Charly turned around to face Lisa. “Nothing major, don’t worry. Just to freshen up your hair a bit. Lou knows what she does”, Lisa calmed her down. Lou was with the boys at their interviews to take care of their hair and their “shiny” faces.  
“Here it is”, she said and disappeared in a door. Charly followed her up the stairs and a moment later they stood in an amazing loft. She let Lisa do all the talking and looked around. They actually had amazing stuff. “Would like to try something on?”, a guy appeared next to her and talked with a strong Italian accent, but she managed to understand him anyway. “Oh, thank you, but I wouldn’t dare to. They’re lovely, absolutely gorgeous”, she said. “Please, try on this dress. A beautiful woman like you needs a dress like this”, he said and handed her a gorgeous knee long dress in different shades of blue (http://img1.promgirl.com/_img/PGPRODUCTS/1061979/1000/blue-night-dress-BC-XGX6X846-a.jpg). “Oh Charly, that dress looks phenomenal. Try it on, come on”, Lisa said and came closer. “Oh, that’s really nice of you to say that, but no, really…I don’t wear dresses”, she said to the guy and ignored Lisa. “Just try it on, will ya? Don’t be rude”, Lisa said laughing and took her by the shoulders and guided her to a little dressing room that Charly hadn’t seen until now. “This is the designer, so shut up”, Lisa whispered to her and almost pushed her inside.  
Charly couldn’t remember when it was the last time that she had worn a dress, but she had to admit it looked quite good. She let down her hair that went down to the end of her shoulder blades. She stepped out of the curtains. “Oh Charly”, Lisa sighed and smiled. “Fantastico, bellissima”, the designer said. Charly blushed and looked down. “It is perfect for you”, he said. “Thank you very much, but I’m pretty sure I can’t afford it”, Charly replied. She looked at herself in the mirror that stood next to the dressing room and sighed. She didn’t know that dresses would look good on her and this one in particular blew even her mind. It definitely gave her a confidence boost. “Oh, don’t worry about money, we in Italy know how to appreciate the beautiful things in life and you in that dress is definitely very beautiful. You should have it. I couldn’t ask for a better advertisement”, the designer said and winked at her. “Are you kidding me?”, Lisa said and stood up. She looked literally shocked. “Then I should try one on as well”, she joked, but Charly could see that she was a bit jealous.  
About 60 minutes later, Charly stood in a different fitting room, Forever 21 this time. She had to wait here while Lisa was out to pick out some stuff for her to try on. It felt like Lisa had brought the whole shop into the little cabin and she had to try everything on and show it to her. After the situation in the designer’s loft, there were a lot of dresses and shorts. “Darling, you have awesome legs, you need to show them more. And no more of these hideous jeans shorts. You look like a lesbian”, Lisa said. “But I love those jeans shorts, I always wear them”, Charly defended her choice of trousers. “And that’s why they have to go, you’re too attached to them. They are the old Charly and this…”, she said and held up very short red shorts, “is the new Charly”, Lisa said and smiled brightly. “This”, Charly said and pointed to those particular shorts, “is hooker-Charly”, she continued and shook her head. “What? No! Trust me, you want those. There will be a point where you will regret it if you don’t take them”, Lisa said. After sort of a staring contest, Charly had to relent. “Alright, you sneaky little girl”, Charly said and went back into the fitting room. What followed were some shirts and normal-length jeans.  
“Ok, last one, I promise. Here take this”, Lisa said and handed her a very tight and short dress. “I can’t wear that, I look like a porn star”, Charly said and stepped out of the cabin. “Oh no, you will look great. Perfect for a date”, Lisa said smiling. “I don’t want to go on dates”, Charly replied. “At the moment, but the time will come and then you have that awesome dress”, Lisa said. “I already have an awesome dress”, Charly said smiling. “True and you have already a lot of stuff”, Lisa said overlooking the pile of clothes next to her on the sofa in the waiting area. “I don’t know how to pay for that anyways”, Charly said and she started to sweat looking at that amount of clothes. “Hey, you’re handling the band budget. Juggle with it a little”, Lisa wiggled her eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? I would lose my job if I’d do that”, Charly replied shocked. “You can write it off as marketing expenses. You’re representing the band”, Lisa suggested. “You’re crazy. I’ve got a credit card, I’ll put it on that. I need my job to pay that bill now”, Charly rolled her eyes and together they carried the clothes and two pairs of high heels to the cashier. “We need to get back, it’s past noon already. We were spending the whole morning shopping. I’ve got some phone calls to make”, Charly said and they took a taxi back to the hotel.  
When they arrived at the hotel, they met Paul in the lobby. “Oh, there you are Charly. The crew for the interviews will be here any minute. I need you for the setup”, he said and together they went up to the 6th floor. “Are they back yet?”, she asked while walking towards the room. “Yes, they’re having lunch downstairs”, Paul answered.  
She hadn’t seen or talked to Liam since last night. As she woke up this morning, for a second she thought it was a dream and she’s still not sure. Together, Paul and Charly moved around the furniture of the suite and a few moments later the tv crew had arrived and were setting up their lights and camera. “Will you get the boys, please?”, Paul asked and turned back to one of the camera guys to talk to. “Yeah, sure”, she said, but was nervous. She went out of the room and towards the elevators. Before she entered the hotel’s restaurant, she took a deep breath and went in. It didn’t take long to find the guys with the security sitting with them. “Hey lads, hope you’re finished. Paul needs you upstairs. New round of interviews waits for you”, she said as she came up to the table and avoided eye contact with Liam. She took out the phone of her back pocket as it vibrated. She had a text from Lisa and read it as she walked with the guys to the elevators. “Come to our room, when you’re done. Makeover time!!”, she read. Oh god!  
“Hey”, Liam said next to her. “Hi”, she looked up to him, a bit surprised because he walked so close to her. “Haven’t seen you all day”, he said. “Yeah, I was picking up some clothes for you guys with Lisa and you had your morning packed”, she explained to him. As if he didn’t know where he was all morning. She shook her head over her stupid answer. “How you’re doing?”, he asked. She searched his face for any signs. “Good. You?”, she said and even her “Good” sounded like a question. “Also good”, he said in a normal tone, but then he winked at her. So it DID happen last night. She had to smile and blushed, so she quickly looked down. She escorted the boys to the hotel room where the interview would happen and then took off to her room, expecting the worst.  
“Come on, Charly, don’t be shy”, Lou said as she saw Charly entering the room. “I’m actually afraid what you two have in mind for me”, Charly answered truthfully. “Okay, let’s settle this once and for all”, Lisa said and pushed Charly down on the chair. She and Lou stepped in front of her. “Do you trust my sense of style?”, Lisa asked. “…Yes?”, Charly said. “And do you trust my knowledge of hair and make-up?”, Lou asked and Charly actually felt intimidated by those two. “Yes, I do”, she answered and didn’t dare to say anything different. “Then shut up for the next 45 minutes and let us do our job”, Lou said and pulled Charly out of her seat and into the bathroom. “We will dye your hair first, don’t worry, I didn’t take something too different or crazy. I just want to bring out your blue eyes and give you a fresh look”, Lou said and calmed Charly a bit. “Nevertheless, I will blindfold you now because Lizzie and I want it to be a surprise”, Lou added and the “calm Charly” would wane.  
“I trust you, but if you two blow this, I will hunt you down”, Charly said as Lou covered her eyes. “I know”, Lou mumbled and got to work. It was weird for Charly to have her hair washed blindfolded, but she did her best to not set the whole bathroom under water. When she was done, Lou sat her on a chair, still in the bathroom. “I will cut the ends just a bit and give it a bit of a cut, so don’t freak if you hear scissors”, Lou warned her. “I’m not gonna say anything to this”, Charly said. She was way beyond curious. She was internally freaking out.  
After a while, Lou led her back out and sat her down again. “I will do your make-up now, so I need to take your blindfold off”, Lou said and the next second Charly blinked a few times to get used to the bright light in the room. “She definitely needs some make-up advice”, Lisa said and appeared in her field of vision. “I know how to use make-up”, Charly defended herself. “Yeah…high school make-up”, Lou said and gave her a look that said “you have no clue, honey”. “The hair look gorgeous by the way, Lou”, Lisa said and acknowledged it with a nod. Charly on the other hand actually started to get mad. These two had no good word for her in the last hour and she felt like a little puppet that they played around with. But as always, she didn’t dare to say something.

“So, done”, Lou said and stepped back. “That is absolutely amazing”, Lisa said and her eyes got big. “Now, let’s get you in your new clothes”, Lisa said and went over to her bed where she had laid out a grey tank top with a black print and the hideous red shorts. “Are you kidding me? There’s no way I’m going to put those on”, Charly crossed her arms in front of her. “Just for fun, okay? I want to see what it looks like with your new hair”, Lisa said and smiled brightly. “Why?! Are they red too?”, Charly asked shocked since she hadn’t seen it. “NO! God, no! Don’t worry, okay? Put it on and then you look at yourself in the mirror”, Lisa said and pushed her towards the bed. Charly changed in front of them since they were only girls. “Jesus, Charly. If I had a figure like yours, I would only walk around in my underwear”, Lou said acknowledging Charly’s figure. “Oh shut up, that’s bullshit. I’m a normal, chubby girl”, Charly waved off. It embarrassed her if someone said that. Ethan never told her that she was sexy, beautiful sometimes, but never sexy. “Darling, I don’t know what that Ethan did to you, but you need to show yourself more. You are a beautiful woman with a gorgeous body and a hell of a rack”, Lisa said to her. “Stop it, you’re making me blush”, Charly shook her head smiling and looked down.  
She put on those red shorts and the grey tank top. A phone vibrated on the table. With a quick look, Charly saw that it was hers. “It’s mine, can you give it to me?”, she asked and Lou handed it over. She had just pulled down the tank top as she picked up. “Hello?”, Charly asked. “Hello, Anastasia Bulmonde, from SF1”, a woman with Swiss accent spoke to her. “Am I talking to Ms. Benett?”, she asked. “Yes, this is she”, Charly answered. “I am calling for the interview with One Direction tomorrow. It seems like there hasn’t been a confirmation of the appointment from your side. We had to set interview at 7 pm now”, the woman said. “That is not possible. The concert starts at 8 pm and they have to be at the venue at 6:30 pm”, Charly explained and got a bit nervous. “We have settled to do it at 3 pm. The band has a very tight schedule. I don’t think we can throw that interview in at a later point. And earlier is also not possible because we arrive from Rome in the late morning”, Charly tried to remember the band’s schedule. “The interviewer is very busy as well and he can’t hold that appointment”, Mrs. Bulmonde said. “I, ehm, can I call you back on that later? I will have a chat with the tour manager and we’ll see what we can do”, Charly offered a later response. “Sounds like a plan. I’m in the office until 6 pm”, she said and shortly after that hung up.  
“Oh god, oh god, oh god”, Charly internally freaked out. She already had totally forgotten about her makeover. “What happened?”, Lisa asked and looked at her worried. “I forgot to confirm that appointment with the swiss tv channel and now they want that interview when the lads are practically up on stage. Paul will kill me”, Charly said and was almost shaking now. That was the first time that she had a mega mess-up as Paul’s assistant. She knew that there was always a first time for everything, but she had hoped it was something less important. “I need to talk to Paul right away. I need to get it over with”, Charly said, grabbed her sneakers and put them on. “But you didn’t see yourself in the mirror yet”, Lisa said and sounded disappointed to miss out on her face when she sees her new self. “No time for that!”, Charly said while almost out the door.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today the boys see the "new" Charly. See what they have to say to her new look =)
> 
> Enjoy!

She went down the corridor to the room they had rent for the band and people to meet up. They always rent out the whole floor for the band, the musicians and the crew.  
She pulled out the keycard from her bag and got in. Inside she found all 5 of One Direction and Paul going through the day until they had their second concert at night. Paul sat at the little table in the room, his laptop in front of him. Harry and Louis relaxed on the bed while Liam practiced some boxing moves with Zayn. Niall was playing a little with his guitar and looked up as Charly spoke. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but it’s important!”, Charly said apologetically. “Wow, Charly! What happened to you?”, Louis screamed out and everybody turned heads. A few mouths dropped and everyone’s eyes got big. Charly had no time to get in on that topic. “Paul, I need to talk to you. I have quite a big problem”, she said and talked directly to Paul. Even he was astonished by her appearance and didn’t listen at first to a word she had just said. “Excuse me, what?”, Paul asked. He was always a very professional guy, but even he couldn’t hide that he noticed a difference on Charly. “I need to talk to you, we have sort of a big problem. Can we talk outside for a minute?”, she said and pointed to the door. “Yes, sure”, he said and got up.  
While Paul and Charly walked out of the room Niall couldn’t help but stare at his manager’s assistant. He had never seen her like that. She looked absolutely beautiful. Of course, the other boys noticed too. “Was that cleavage I saw on Charly?”, Liam asked and grinned. The others chuckled. “I didn’t even know she had boobs before.”, Zayn choked and boxed Liam’s arm. “Looks like my pillows get some air today.”, Harry said and laughed. “I can’t believe you actually do that, Harry.”, Louis wondered. Everyone wondered how Harry just started to take naps on Charly’s boobs and Charly being totally ok with that. Niall remembered that fact with not as much amusement as the other four. “But have you seen those legs, mate? Never seen those before either.”, Zayn mentioned. “Hey! Stop talking about my pillows like that!”, Harry scolded chokingly. “It’s not nice to call her ‘your pillows’ either, mate.”, Niall finally said something and stopped playing his guitar. “Whoa, sorry buddy.”, Harry laughed. The others looked confused at their band mate. Of course, Niall noticed that. “But you’re right, she looks great.”, he quickly added and continued playing his guitar.  
Outside the hotel room, Charly took a deep breath and looked up. Her mouth went dry and her hands were shaking. She hated it when she messed up. “The woman from the swiss tv station had called me. It seems like I have forgotten to confirm their interview and now the interviewer has no time and they want to move it to 7 pm, but I told them that’s not possible because they have to get ready for the show and that I will call her back as soon as possible because I have to talk to you and now I’m here”, she rattled off. “Calm down, Charly”, Paul said and took her by the shoulders. “Don’t freak out over nothing. So, to get this straight”, Paul said and talked to her very slowly. “The interview was not confirmed and they want to do it at 7 pm?”, he asked. “Yes”, she answered and sounded out of breath. “And you told them that they have to get ready for the show, alright?”, he continued. “Yes”, she confirmed. “Then we tell them that they can have a 15-minutes-interview from quarter to 7 to 7 pm at the venue. That simple”, Paul said and shrugged his shoulders. “Really? You not gonna scream at me for messing up?”, she asked and wasn’t sure if it was just the calm before the storm. “Oh come on, you should know by now that I’m not like that. Sure, it was not the brightest moment in your career, but it’s a problem that can be solved and also, the band and we are in a state right now, where the stations need us more than we need them. I don’t say that we can forego them, but we have an easier time negotiating with them”, Paul explained. “Ok, thank you so much”, Charly said relieved and felt the need to hug him. He patted her back and then she let go.  
“Let’s go inside and call that lady. I want to settle this right away, so I don’t have to think about it for the rest of the day”, he said and she followed him back in. This time she was relaxed enough to not zone out the comments of the boys. “Hey, pretty lady!”, Louis said as he saw her again. “You look absolutely gorgeous”, Harry said with a charming smile. The other ones smiled at her, but didn’t say a word. “Thank you, but don’t get used to those red hot pants. I feel like a stripper”, she said and blushed. She hadn’t even seen herself in the mirror. “Do you have her number?”, Paul asked and grabbed his phone. “Uhm, yes. Just a second”, Charly said and searched through her recent call list. “Here”, she handed over her phone and he called right from hers.  
“Did Lisa and Lou do that?”, Niall asked and couldn’t help but stare at her. “Yes and I actually haven’t seen it myself. They blindfolded me while doing it”, Charly explained and stepped back to the mirror on the wall in the hallway. “Oh wow”, she said as she saw herself and couldn’t believe it. Her hair was dyed in mahogany brown which brought out her blue eyes. (http://redhairstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/mahogany-brown-hair-dye-color.jpg) And her eyes were framed by a light line of black eyeliner. Charly was actually shocked that it was her that looked back in the mirror. She looked a lot more like a woman than she probably ever had. “Crazy”, she mumbled and got closer to the mirror. She couldn’t say it differently. She was hot. In the corner of the mirror she saw Niall looking at her, smiling.  
“Blindfold? I always wondered what you girls do when you were alone”, Louis winked and wiggled with his eyebrows. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Tommo”, she warned him playfully. “Turn around, let us have a closer look.”, Harry said and twirled his finger in the air. She felt weird, but she did it. Liam just sat there and scanned her. He couldn’t believe that this was the same Charly from last night. He had always liked her, but now he looked at her differently. He had to admit, it was not completely because of her makeover, but also for last night. Suddenly her words from last night popped into his head. “It was really nice, but we shouldn’t do this again. We’re working together after all.” He remembered he promised that to her, but he wasn’t sure if he could keep it anymore.  
“Lisa said, after a breakup I need a makeover, so I would feel better and I actually do. I feel different, but in a good way”, she said and gave Liam a little side look. He was also the reason she felt differently. “You look absolutely amazing, Charly”, Niall said with a stupid grin. “Oh, it hit him”, Zayn said and laughed. “Shut up”, Niall said and hit him on the arm. The last thing he needed right now was Zayn spilling his secret feelings for Charly, especially in front her. He wasn’t even sure about it himself. “Ehm, Charly. I dropped my pen. Could you get it for me, please?”, Louis asked obviously innocent, but Charly didn’t notice that. Liam had seen that he had dropped it on purpose. “Yeah sure”, Charly said and bent down to pick it up. “Hey-oh”, Louis screamed and the five of them applauded. Just now she realized that she had stretched out her ass to the guys…in those hideous red shorts. “Oh, grow up”, she said and threw the pen to Louis, but had to laugh.  
Paul had finished his phone call and returned her phone. “Everything settled, so don’t worry about it any longer”, he said. “Thank you so much”, Charly gave him her brightest smile. What would I give to receive that smile, Niall thought to himself. “Okay, I gotta go now. I’ll pick you guys up at 6, okay?”, she said and as they all nodded she left. At first she wanted to get out of those shorts as soon as possible, but she had to admit the reaction of the guys was what she just needed at the moment. She was about to discover what a sexy woman she could be after all those years with Ethan holding her down and practically turning her into a boy. Now was the time for her to try out new things and acting like a stupid teenager. After she had done her work, of course. She wanted to keep the feeling she had right now and the little boost of self-confidence. It felt like the first time she ever had self-confidence. So the next time the guys asked her to go out, she would definitely say yes.  
She went back to her room. “Please tell me the guys didn’t see you like this?”, Lisa said. Lou must have gone to her own room because Lisa was alone. “Then I better don’t say anything”, Charly said and went past her to get to her bed. “Oh no, I wanted to present you to the others”, Lisa whined. “It was just Paul and the boys. You can still present me to the rest of the crew”, Charly said and faltered. Did she really just say that? 

Later that night, Liam knocked on her door. “Hey Liam, what’s up?”, she asked and he noted that she was still wearing those red short and her tank top. “Are you alone?”, he asked and looked over her shoulder. “Yes, but…”, she didn’t came further because he was pressing his lips onto hers and pushed her inside her room, closing the door with his foot. “Liam, what are you doing?”, she asked as she finally had the strength to push him away, still standing in the doorway. “Do you have any idea how hot you look?”, he asked and wanted to kiss her again, but she held him back. “I’m not hot, I’m just dressed up”, she found it weird to be called hot, no one ever would say that. “You know, that makes you even hotter. You don’t know you’re beautiful and that what makes you beautiful”, Liam said. Charly pulled one eyebrow up. “Really? Your own lyrics?”, she asked sarcastically. “If it fits.”, Liam shrugged his shoulders.  
He bent down his head again to kiss her, but she stopped him. “Liam, we agreed that we can’t do this anymore”, she said. He gave her a flirty smile and started to kiss her neck. “Liam, stop it”, she said and her voice sounded powerless. “We work together…it’s not right…it was good because it happened once”, she tried to convince not only him, but herself. “I can make it better”, he whispered at her ear, “…as friends.” “Do you mean…friends with benefits?”, she sighed as he kissed her soft spot. “Well, we are friends…”, he said and kissed her right corner of her mouth, “…and we benefit from each other…”, he kissed the left corner of her mouth. “Does it make you feel better, Charly?”, he softly asked. “Very”, she said and bit her lip as he kissed down her neck again.  
He slowly pushed her backwards to her bed. As she felt the edge of the bed at the back of her knees, she held on to his upper arms. She felt the muscles under his skin and got goose bumps all over her body. “What do you say, Charly? Do you want me to comfort you…as a friend?”, he asked, his face hovering over hers. She looked up into his deep brown eyes and had to swallow. “Be my friend, Liam”, she whispered.


	11. Chapter 11

Liam grabbed them hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head. He started kissing her neck down to her collarbone. Charly had closed her eyes and enjoyed the soft touches of his lips on her skin. She felt his tongue gliding over her collarbone and threw her head back. She bit her lip as he worked his way back up over her neck and jaw line to her mouth. He put his hand in her neck to support her head as he put his lips onto hers. His tongue glided over her lower lip and she opened her mouth. A second later he explored her mouth with his tongue, deepening the kiss. The hand in her neck pressed her closer to him.  
Charly’s heart started racing. She had never felt something like that before. Sex with Ethan didn’t happen often and was rarely exciting and now she knew why. But Liam was a whole other game. He was a man that wanted her and was not afraid to show it. How much he wanted her, Charly felt on her upper thigh as he pressed himself against her.  
She wrapped her arms around his neck and without further thinking she jumped up as he put his hands on her bum and wrapped her legs around his waist. “God, I love those red shorts”, he whispered at her mouth and his grip around her ass tightened. Lisa was right. She would have regretted it if she hadn’t taken them and that moment was now.  
Liam laid her down on the bed and moved over her. Together they took off his tank top and he threw it over her head on the floor. She let her hands slide over his chest down to his abs and admired the view in front of her. She didn’t know it until now that abs like that turned her on that much. Liam’s lips found her neck again and started sucking on it which gave her goose bumps all over her body. Her hands straddled his waist and started to pull the cord of his sweatpants. Liam lifted himself up and gave her a devilish grin. “This time I came prepared”, he said and pulled out a condom. “Although I said it shouldn’t happen again”, Charly said and smilingly shook her head. He pulled down his pants and with it his boxers. She bit her lip as she saw what he had in stall for her. She actually hadn’t seen it before because down at the pool it all had happened so fast and it was dark.  
With a wolfish grin he noticed her look on him. “You like it?”, he said with a grin. “Very much”, Charly nodded like she was in trance. “As much as I like those red shorts, I would love to see them go now”, he winked at her and now it was on him to bite his lip. She opened the button and pulled down the zip slowly and enjoyed the small amount of power she had over him right now. He followed every move of her with his eyes. She pulled down the shorts and tossed them on the floor. With just her bra and her panties, she got up on her knees and reached out for the condom he was still holding in his hand. “May I?”, she said as sexy as she could. She ripped the package open with her teeth. She took out the condom and moved closer to the edge of the bed and Liam also came closer towards her.  
For a second she hesitated, but as she looked up into Liam’s eyes she just really wanted to go for it. Her hand reached out and grabbed his cock. Her thumb slowly moved over his tip which made him moan. She placed the condom on him and as she rolled it down on his length she looked straight into his eyes and could watch them darken with every inch she pulled the condom further down.  
“Oh baby”, he moaned and threw his head back. She started kissing and sucking his neck as her hands again moved over his stomach. It was time for her to stop being the passive part. Liam’s hands moved over her back to open her bra and he slid down the straps of it. He tossed it aside and firmly grabbed her boobs. She hissed at his neck and bit his skin to release some of the tension that had built up inside of her.  
She formed a trail of kisses on his neck up to his mouth. She was gliding her tongue over his lower lip and then into his mouth. The kiss quickly got deeper and rougher. Liam leaned down again and crawled over Charly without breaking the kiss. Liam was too turned on to fumble long with her panties, so he just ripped them off. “Oh god”, Charly moaned and felt an adrenalin rush through her body. With a fast and hard thrust he was inside of her and she cried out. His roughness surprised her and it hurt just a little bit. He gave her a second to adjust to his size and then started to thrust, quickening his pace shortly after his entering.  
Liam grabbed her breasts even tighter the faster he got. She panted heavily with every thrust of him and tugged her nails into his back. “Oh Liam…oh god, yeah”, she moaned and bit his shoulder. She felt his quick breaths at her neck. “Let’s change position”, he suggested out of breath. She had been in such a trance that she couldn’t respond. But the next thing she knew, he had pulled out, lay down next to her and pulled her onto him. He adjusted himself so she could slide right down on him. As she felt him deep inside of her, she threw her head back and let out a long and satisfied moan. She then started to rock her hips back and forth and slowly began to ride him.  
She supported herself on his hands and moved her hips even faster. It gave her an irrational feeling of power to be on top and the way he looked up at her turned her on even more. She felt the warm feeling she knew from that night by the pool growing in her stomach. “Liam, I’m close”, she mumbled. He sat up and put his arms on her waist to keep her exactly where she was. “Oh god!”, she cried out as he closed his mouth around her nipple and sucked on it. This action sent showers of an electric feeling through her body and after moving her hips even faster up and down on his cock, she came so hard that her body started to shake. She grabbed his hair, pulled his head back and pressed her lips onto his mouth to not scream out so that she would be heard on the whole floor.  
As her orgasm started to drain away, she buried her face at his neck and caught her breath. “Did you came too?”, she asked out of breath and for a second had trouble focusing on his face. “No, not yet, but I’m close”, he said, also out of breath. “Oh…okay…sorry”, she said and didn’t know how to act. “Don’t worry, love. We’re not done yet”, he winked at her and carefully pushed her off him. “Lay down”, he instructed her and even before her back touched the mattress, he was over her again and a second later in her. “Give me all you’ve got, Payne”, she said with a husky voice. She didn’t know where that came from, but he seemed to like it. His thrusts were deep, fast and hard. She couldn’t believe it, but she felt that warm feeling again growing in her stomach. “Oh my god”, she said and was actually surprised that this was possible so shortly after she had come herself. “Oh baby…oh god…oh shit, Charly”, he moaned at her ear and his thrusts became hectic and uncontrolled. With two last thrusts he came and then collapsed onto her.

Liam and Charly lay next to each other naked under the covers. “That was nice”, she said and played with his fingers. “It really was”, he said and rubbed his nose at her temple. “Maybe it wasn’t that bad of an idea to do that again”, Charly said and chuckled. The two just enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere after their sex.  
All of a sudden Charly heard someone at the door. This could only mean that Lisa was back. “Oh shit”, she said and pushed Liam off her bed. “Ouch”, he mumbled as he landed on the floor between her bed and the wall. “Hey Lisa”, Charly said and sat up. She only had the sheets wrapped around her naked body. “Hey”, Lisa waved and staggered, then leaned against the wall. “You seem drunk”, Charly stated. “That’s because I am”, Lisa winked, at least she tried to, but she closed both of her eyes. “Did you guys empty the minibar?”; Charly pulled her eyebrows up. “Kind of”, she said and had to hick. “I better go take a shower so I don’t get a hangover”, she said and pushed herself off the wall. “Yes, that’s a good idea. A long shower will only do good”, Charly said and nodded. Lisa stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.  
Charly waited a second and then turned around. Liam was already on his feet. “Quick, you need to go now”, she said and got up, the sheet still wrapped around her. She helped him collect all his clothes while he put his boxers back on. He put on his sweatpants and his tank top. “Come on, let’s go”, she said and pushed him towards the door. He chuckled. “Shhh, shut up”, Charly hissed, but had to laugh as well, so she covered her mouth with her hand that was not holding the sheet. “You look so sexy when you’re scared”, Liam whispered and pressed her against the wall. She had goose bumps all over her body. He pressed his lips onto hers and gave her a long and deep kiss. “You should go now”, she said out of breath and didn’t really mean it, but she knew they must not get caught. He took a step back and after a flirty wink, he was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

As the alarm on her phone went off, Charly’s eyes fluttered open and she just felt good. This time she was sure that what happened last night was real. The sheer thought of that put a smile on her face. She almost hopped out of bed and took a shower in the bathroom.  
Today they would fly to Bern in Switzerland for their next concert. She would let Lisa sleep until she had finished her round. Today it was her duty to wake up the boys. Normally, it was either Mark’s or Paul’s job, but they decided to take turns with Charly because it was not the easiest part of their job. She grabbed the backup-keycards to all of their hotel rooms in case they lost their own. That had happened quite a few times by now and Paul didn’t want to take a risk anymore at that.  
Charly decided to start on Zayn who was sharing a room with Louis. He always took the longest and needed to be woken a second time. She went down the corridor to Zayn’s room and quietly got in. She started on opening the curtains. “Morning lads, time to get up”, she said and walked over to Zayn’s bed. “Zayn, wake up”, she said and rocked him at his shoulder. She took off his blanket. She had learnt that this is the only way to get him out of bed. “I’m gonna wake up the other ones and then I’ll be back”, she said and on her way out, she asked, “Louis, you’re up?” and he mumbled, “Yes, I’m up”, and turned around in bed again. Well, she would have to wake up both of them again.  
Next, she got to Niall, who was sharing his room with Josh, the band’s drummer. As she got in, she found Josh walking into the bathroom and Niall sitting up in his bed, but barely able to open his eyes. “That’s why you’re my favorites”, she said and went up to the balcony to open up the curtains. “Ah, close them”, Niall said and put his hand in front of his eyes. “Aww, sorry, but you will fall asleep again”, she said, went up to him and brushed through his tousled hair. He let his head fall over to land on her stomach. “I always feel terrible when I have to wake you up, but we have to leave in an hour and you have to pack up your stuff”, she said while softly padding his head. “So, three up, 2 to go”, she said and took a step back. “Don’t fall asleep again”, she admonished him playfully and left the room. Off to Harry and Liam.  
Since their room was right next to Lisa’s and her own, she would check on her friend after to see how she’s been after her drunken night. Thanks to that, she didn’t catch Liam and her in bed last night. But that’s also why it was a bit weird for her to wake him up now. So as she got in, she went right up to the windows to open the curtains and then over to Harry. “Harry, wake up”, she almost whispered and with her fingers brushed his hair out of his face. With Harry it was the best to be gentle and calm, just like a mother. She also wanted to be the “female” part of the wakening troop in comparison to Paul and Mark.  
“Mhmm”, Harry murmured annoyed. He hated it when someone came to wake him up. “Sorry love, but you have to get up now”, she said. “No”, he mumbled and Liam turned around to face the other side of the room. “Yes, come on”, she said and he wrapped his arms around her legs. “Harry, stop it, you will make me fall over”, she raised her voice. With a hefty hitch Harry pulled at her legs and made her fall onto the bed. “Ahhh, Harry”, she screamed out. Now Liam was really awake. “Guys, please. It’s too early”, he said, got up and went to the bathroom. Harry turned around and all of a sudden lay on top of her. It amazed Charly how fast he could be just after he had woken up. “It’s too early, let’s sleep for another 15 minutes”, he said and entangled his legs with hers to pin her down. “Stop it Harry”, she said and tried to push him off, but he had developed an incredible amount of strength at this time of day.  
“Group cuddle?”, Liam asked. She hadn’t heard him coming back in. The next thing she knew was Liam on top of Harry and also on top of her. The weight of two men on her was too much. “Ugh, guys…can’t…breath”, Charly pressed out. Liam rolled over to her right side and Harry to her left side. “Oh, a One Direction sandwich. I’m living every fangirls dream”, she laughed. “Let’s put this on Instagram”, Harry suggested and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. “What?”, Charly asked surprised and before she could realize what he had in mind, the phone camera appeared in front of her. “Smile”, Harry said and took a picture of them three.  
“Okay, now you really have to get up”, she said and robbed to the end of the bed and got up. “I have to check on Zayn again”, she said and left. Before she went back to Zayn’s room, she got to her own. Lisa lay still in bed. “Lisa, are you awake?”, she asked her. “Yes, but please don’t ask me to move”, she mumbled and had her eyes closed. “Can I get you anything?”, Charly asked and kept a low voice. “A new head, please”, Lisa responded. “I’ll try to find that while I wake up Zayn again”, Charly said and went back to the door. “Good luck with that”, Lisa mumbled and Charly closed the door behind her.  
She went back down the corridor to Zayn’s and Louis’ room. Niall stepped out of his and almost bumped into Charly. “Oh hey, glad to see you got up”, Charly smiled. “Yeah, somehow I managed”, he said and yawned. “I’m trying to wake up Zayn again”, Charly said. “Oh, I wanna see that happen, I’ll join you”, Niall said and together they walked into Zayn’s hotel room. “Zayn, are you still awake?”, Charly asked as she entered the room. With relief she found Louis’ bed empty. That meant she had at least one person up in this room.  
“Zayn? Come on, everybody’s up now”, she said and rocked his shoulder again. That guy really got up to get his blanket from the floor and wrapped himself in it again. “Go away”, he mumbled and turned around. “No, YOU get up now”, she said and shook his shoulder with both her hands. Niall jumped on Zayn’s bed and screamed, “GET UP! GET UP! GET UP!”, while jumping around him. Where did he take the energy from? “Niall, get off, that’s rude”, Charly said and wanted to pull him down, but he always jumped away. “Stop it, dickhead”, Zayn grunted and tried to kick him. “Guys, stop it, it’s too early for that nonsense”, Charly said and didn’t know if she should pull Niall down first or try to grab Zayn’s leg to stop the kicking. This was like kindergarten.  
Charly got hold of Zayn’s leg, but he still managed to kick Niall in the nuts. So Charly fell onto the bed because of the sudden movement and Niall collapsed holding his nuts. That’s when their heads bumped together and Niall fell off the bed. “Ouch!”, Charly and Niall screamed out at the same time. “Okay, now I’m awake. What a show!”, Zayn laughed. “What did I miss?”, Louis came out of the bathroom with just a towel around his waist and wet hair. “They knocked each other out”, Zayn was still laughing. Charly didn’t really feel like it. She and Niall hit each other quite hard on the head.  
“Niall, are you okay?”, Charly asked over the edge of the bed she was still lying on. “No”, he pressed out, still holding his nuts. It seemed that Zayn had hit him quite hard. “I meant your head, but it seems like this is not your biggest concern right now”, she said and maneuvered herself off the bed. “It seems you’re all up right now, so get dressed, pack your bags and I want you all downstairs in 40 minutes”, she said and held her forehead while she walked out. That would become quite a lump.

Almost an hour later they all climbed into the waiting taxis to get to the airport. Her head still hurt from the “meeting” with Niall’s. His head was quite hard. Niall also had a little lump on the left side of his forehead, but not as big as Charly’s right in the middle. She looked like a unicorn “in progress”. “I’m sorry for that”, he said and pointed at the lump. “It was not your fault. You had other “things” to worry about”, she waved off and pointed to his crotch. “Is it better now?”, she asked. “Slightly. Do you want to blow a kiss on it?”, he asked and jokingly wiggled his eyebrows. “Stop it, you idiot”, Charly slapped his upper arm, but had to laugh.  
They all got to the airport in time and boarded their flight. They flew for only 90 minutes and most of them spent them sleeping. When they arrived at the hotel, Charly checked everyone in and handed out the keys. “Mr. Payne, you’re the winner of the master room”, she said and handed him the key. The master room was a double bed room he would have all to himself. With 5 boys in the band, one sometimes had the chance to have the room to himself when it was also possible with the hotel reservations. Charly always chose randomly, but this time, she had a little bit of an ulterior motive this time.


	13. Chapter 13

Charly and the crew drove to the venue of tonight to set up the stage. The crew of the stadium had done quite a good job setting up the main stage and One Direction’s crew would just add the lights, tech and the long runway into the crowd because of the short time slot. It amazed her every time in which short time period they could set up this gigantic stage. And it amazed her even more that the lads could run up and down this endless seeming runway all night long, almost every night. She was even getting out of breath while rushing through the airports when they have to catch their connecting flights.  
Charly walked down the runway slowly, shielded her eyes with her hand from the sun and imagined all the empty space being filled with people, all the way up to the last row of the seats in the stands. She felt like a proud mum thinking that the lads could fill this stadium up on their own.  
As she reached the end of the runway, Charly climbed off the stage and wandered over the space for the crowd while it was still empty. The people, mostly girls, that came to the concert would probably not perceive the amazing view that was given. She walked until she was in the middle of the arena and just lay down. The sun was shining bright and the sky was almost cloudless. For a moment she could zone out the crew that was working on stage and just enjoy the warmth of the sun on her face.  
So this is where the people would be staying while watching the concert. Some of them were already outside waiting and when the security would open the gates and they would rush in. If Charly was still laying here they would probably just run her over, stomping on her body like she wasn’t there. The sheer thought of a thousand feet trampling over her brought a lump to her throat and her heart started racing. She suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore, like those thousands of feet were already standing on her chest. Charly quickly sat up and tried to calm herself but it wouldn’t work. Charly panted quickly and started shaking. Oh my god, is this a…panic attack?, she thought to herself.  
She got up on the shaky legs and almost ran to the backstage area because she needed to get away from that wide open space, but also because she didn’t want the crew to know what was going on. She stumbled along the hallway down to the dressing room of the band. They should be on their way to an interview with the local newspaper, so she could just freak out on her own. She actually didn’t know what to do since this was the first time she was experiencing something like this. She suddenly tried to think what always happened in a movie when someone got a panic attack. Didn’t they always have a bag or something to breathe into? Charly couldn’t find a bag to breathe into, so she just covered her mouth with her hands and went into a squat position.  
It didn’t matter what she did, she didn’t feel better. Her head was spinning, her heart was racing and stars appeared before her eyes. “Shit, shit, shit”, she said and felt her mouth getting dry.  
“Hey Charly, I just forgot my phone…are you alright?”, Niall appeared in the door, looking at the back of Charly. “No”, she said truthfully and sounded out of breath. Niall came round and also went into a squatting position in front of her. “I…think…I’m…having…a…panic…attack”, she said while heavily panting. “Really? How? Why?”, Niall asked shocked. He had never experienced something like that and didn’t know how to act either. “Can I help you somehow? Tell me what to do!”, he kept asking since she wasn’t answering. “I think you…I need you to…hold me…really tight”, she said and reached for his hands. “Oh…okay.”, Niall answered, unsure what to do next. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and grabbed his other hand on the back. “Like that?”, he asked. “Tighter”, she said and he pressed her against his chest. He sat down on the carpet and pulled her on his lap.  
Niall sighed. This was not really the way he imagined being close to her. Although he enjoyed holding Charly in his arms, the situation was definitely not the one he always dreamed of. He quickly lost his thoughts. He shouldn’t think that way. He couldn’t say how long he was sitting there, holding Charly tight to his chest, her, breathing into her hands, but she stopped shaking and began to breath normal again. Charly also felt her heart beating at a normal speed again.  
Suddenly she felt very tired and was glad that she had Niall to lean against. “Are you okay now?”, he asked in a whispered tone. “I think so, thanks”, she said but didn’t think of getting up. “Was this your first panic attack?”, he asked. “Yes”, she replied. “And how did you know what to do? I mean that holding you tight would help you to calm down?”, he asked. “I saw it on Grey’s Anatomy”, she said and looked up at him smiling. “And do you know why you had it?”, he kept asking, mostly to keep the conversation going and being able to keep holding her. “It’s such a dumb reason actually”, she said and sat up, but kept her position on his lap. It was actually quite comfortable. Niall on the other hand moved his hands down on her back and around her hips. As long as she wouldn’t say anything he wouldn’t miss the chance of being close to her.  
“I was out in the arena where the crowd would be standing and lay down on the ground to enjoy the sun and so on. And then when I imagined that all the fans would come running in and probably run just over me, I…just started panicking”, she explained to him and felt a lump to her throat again. “I can’t even talk about it without feeling panicky again”, she said and took a deep breath. “Oh wow, yeah, the thought of those masses can be quite fearful. I had that at the beginning a lot. Actually all of us 5 had that, some coped better with it than others”, Niall told her and paused. Charly looked at his face. “You look like you want to say something. Come on, spill”, she said and was happy for every distraction she could get.  
Niall remained silent at first. He wasn’t sure if he should actually say it. “Well, I had thought that you panicked because of your ex or, better said, the way he had ended it. It was quite a shocker and I am surprised how well you cope with it”, Niall said and looked at her face to see how she took it. “Yes, that was quite heavy, but no, it’s not the thing that gets me to panic. It makes me questioning myself actually, but the makeover that Lisa gave me is helping quite well”, Charly said and smiled lightly. The fact that she hasn’t been enough woman to keep Ethan had given her self-confidence a crack.  
Niall scanned her face while she said that. Her face was so pure, so naturally beautiful. “I’m sure you will find someone that will appreciate you the way that you are and I don’t mean the styled up version of Charly, but the real Charly. Something that just feels right and effortless…and it might even be right in front of you without realizing it”, he said and looked down. Charly immediately thought of Liam and the way he had looked at her as he had slept with her. She wasn’t sure if he was THE ONE, but she was sure he was the one giving her the best sex she had ever experienced.  
“You’re sweet, Niall, thank you. You’re such a good friend”, she said and hugged him before she got up. Ouch, that hurt, Niall thought to himself and got up himself. “Here’s your phone”, she said and pointed to the couch. “Oh yeah”, he said and walked over to the couch as well. They both bended down at the same time to get the phone and bumped their heads again, this time on the other sides. “Ouch”, they both screamed out. “That will add another lump to the head”, Niall said and rubbed the part of his forehead. “Then you can show your inner devil”, Charly joked and rubbed her forehead too. At least he didn’t hit her as hard this time.  
“I’m sorry I kept you from going to your interview. I’ll text Paul right away to let him know you helped me with something and were not wandering around”, Charly said and took out her phone and started typing.  
“Let’s get you to your interviews”, Charly said when she had finished and put her phone back into her back pocket of her jeans. She grabbed her stuff from the couch and left with Niall. She still felt a bit weird from before, but Niall had really helped her calming down again. So she was very happy that he had been there for her.  
They had to wait for their taxi between the tour busses because so many fans were waiting outside. For now, they hadn’t seen Niall. “You’re sure your better now? If you need to lie down, you can stay here. I will find my way to the interviews”, Niall made sure Charly really was okay. “No, I’m good, thanks. Also it’s part of my job to take care of you”, she said, winked and poked his ribs with her elbow. “Awww, that’s cute. But we also take care of you, we’re family”, he said and put his arm around her shoulders. He really wanted to keep the contact as long as it wasn’t weird. “Thank you, Niall. You’re cute”, she said and pressed herself at his chest for a split second to return the embrace. “Do you want another hug?”, he asked smiling and winked at her. “No, I’m good”, Charly waved off. “Sure? One says, I give the best hugs around here”, Niall asked and wiggled his eyebrows. “That’s true. The one before wasn’t that bad either, but I couldn’t really ‘enjoy’ that”, she told him and did the quotation marks with her fingers.  
Niall opened his arms and so did Charly and then he hugged her tight. They stood there for a few seconds before they let go. If it was up to Niall, they would have stood there forever like this, but it was Charly who broke the hug. “NIAAAAAALL!”, they heard girls screaming and then some others cheering. Charly and Niall both looked up at the fans that were waiting outside the arena. The back entrance area where they had parked the busses was at a lower level than the public entrance. So the fans were looking down on them over the railing at the main entrance. Niall waved at them what made them scream even more. Charly saw so many phones and cameras that were taking pictures of Niall that she could barely see the faces of the fans.  
At that minute, the taxi finally arrived and Niall rushed over to hold the door open for Charly to get in first, but also to get a good look of her bum in those jeans.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I post the new chapter a day early because today IS MY BIRTHDAY! =)
> 
> So, ENJOY!!

“Shit, they’re still showing”, Lou said as she watched Niall on the big screen at the concert later that evening. She was referring to the lumps on his forehead that made him look like a little devil. She had done the best she could do to cover them up, but you could still see them, especially when he sang directly into the camera. She also tried to cover Charly’s “horn”, but that was almost impossible.  
“They said it would rain today, but it actually looks quite okay”, Lisa said while looking up to the sky. The three stood on the sidestage behind the two big side-screens. “I don’t know about that”, Charly said and also looked up into the sky. “The clouds back there look quite dark”, she continued and swallowed. She didn’t like thunderstorms at all. “Anyway, I got some spare clothes already laid out in the dressing room if needed”, Lisa said and continued to watch the show.  
About 5 songs in, it started raining heavily during Don’t forget where you belong and by the end of Live while we’re young they were completely soaked. “Okay, I will get the clothes”, Lisa sighed and turned around to walk backstage. “I’ll help you, I will need some styling products as well. They’re getting completely washed out right now”, Lou said and joined her on her way. Charly was left there on her own. Paul was running around backstage as he always did.  
Her eyes focused on Liam dancing on the runway. They way he moved his hips reminded her very much of last night and sent shivers down her spine. She automatically bit her lip and crossed her arms in front of her chest. As he ran the runway back up towards the band, he found Charly watching him and winked at her. The surprised look on her face told him that she didn’t realize that he would notice her stare. He chuckled to himself and ran back out to the crowd.  
“Charly!”, she heard Lou scream as they came back. It was very loud because of the fans and the music and she could barely understand her. Lou handed her the make-up bag full of products and helped Lisa to pull the fully packed clothes rack.  
The wind became stronger and they had to move a few steps back to not get wet themselves. When the first lightning appeared in the sky, Charly almost jumped. “Are you scared?”, Lisa asked her. “No, it just surprised me”, Charly lied. She was actually frightened to death. She hated thunderstorms, but she didn’t want to admit it.  
Paul came up to the ladies. “Good, you got the clothes. I’ll tell the guys they have to come change in like 3 to 5 songs, so prepare”, he said and was gone already. “I will need your help then. They have to change quickly”, Lisa screamed towards Charly and she nodded in agreement. Lisa went up to the clothes rack to a bag that was hanging there and took out a few slips of paper and sharpies. She handed it out to Lou and Charly. “What should we do with that?”, Charly asked and took the sharpie Lisa handed to her.  
“When do we girls get the change to be the judges of a wet t-shirt contest?”, she asked and smiled brightly. Lou and Charly laughed out loud and started writing numbers on it. Charly was happy for the distraction. So whenever the cameras showed one of the guys on the big screens behind the band, they would hold up the number they thought they deserved. Louis looked a bit like a picture of misery with his skinny arms and legs and the hair washed down by the rain.  
Niall, Liam and especially Zayn looked pretty good in the rain and got scores like 8, 9 or 10. With the scarf-headband in Harry’s hair, you couldn’t almost tell that they were wet. Lisa wanted to make a selfie of the three girls while the guys had gathered for Little Things and all of them were shown on the big screen. She posted it with the words “Thank god we’re still dry”.  
“Let me do one too”, Lou said and held her phone up to make another selfie. That’s when Niall and Louis came backstage and Niall photobombed the girls and pressed his wet self against them. “Ew, get off”, Lisa screamed out and jumped forward. Charly just arched her back away from his wet shirt. “Come on, guys. Get changed”, Lisa said, but the boys shook their heads. “We just came to get those rain jackets”, Louis said and pulled 2 off the box. The crew of the stadium had put them there for like Paul and Charly and everyone that was around. “Hey, what are you doing with those signs?”, Niall asked as he pointed at the slips of paper. “We were just judging your wet t-shirt appearances”, Lisa explained and laughed. “What’s my score?”, Louis asked. “You don’t wanna know”, Charly waved off and bit her lip to hold back the laughter. “And what’s mine?”, Niall asked. “Better”, Lou said. And the next second they were gone and back on stage already.  
“Hey, the guys backstage are judging our ‘wet’ appearance, guys”, Louis said in his microphone. “Let’s put on a show then. Let’s do the catwalk”, Liam said and Niall and Louis walked to the front and back, doing their “best” model impressions and poses. “How did we do, girls?”, Niall asked to the back. Lou, Charly and Lisa ran out on the stage with their signs and held them up so the camera could zoom in on them and show it on the big screens. All were holding up a 10, and then quickly ran backstage to not get completely drenched. “YES! We did it!”, Louis screamed out. “Do you guys agree?”, Liam asked the crowd and they screamed at the top of their lungs.  
As an even bigger lightning appeared in the sky, Charly couldn’t take it anymore and walked backwards, as far away from the stage and the open space as she could. Thanks to the loud music, she couldn’t hear the sounds of the thunder, but no one could turn off the lightning. Lisa didn’t notice it because she was focused on the action going on on stage and Lou was texting again.   
When they had the longer break between the main concert and the encore, they came backstage to finally change. Lisa and Charly helped them get off their shirts because they were basically sticking to their body’s. Charly helped Liam and felt a bit weird taking off his shirt in front of the others. She felt like the guys could notice something. “Feels familiar, doesn’t it?”, Liam said in a lower tone so only she could hear it. “Stop it”, she said and resisted the urge to punch him, but even more the urge to kiss him. His wet hair and glistening chest made him look irresistible. “Here, take this”, she almost threw the towel into his face. He smiled devilishly and started to rub his hair dry.  
“Give this to Niall”, Lisa said and gave Charly a plain white t-shirt with irish-green arms and shoulder parts. She went over to Niall, who was rubbing his hair dry with a towel. “Here put this on”, she said, handed him the clothes and took the wet towel out of his hands. He put the dry clothes on and went over to Lou to get new styling gel in his hair.  
“Everybody finished?”, Paul asked. “Then let’s get back out. Great show so far. Let’s keep it that way!”, he said and patted everyone’s backs as they walked out on stage again. The band performed an encore of 4 songs including You & I, Story of My Life, Little White Lies and Best Song Ever as the big finale. But Charly didn’t stay around to watch it because she was already on her way to the dressing room to avoid any more lightning and thunder. 

About 10 minutes later everybody came into the dressing room. “Let me help you”, Charly said and grabbed the other end of the clothes rack and pulled it into the room and to the wall. “Thank you”, Lisa said. Lou came in right after and put down the bag with styling products and the pile of wet towels. You could hear the lads a while before they came through the door. “Wow, what a great show”, Harry said. “Despite the weather”, Louis added. “It’s amazing how the crowd coped with the rain. It was really a lot”, Liam said and pulled up his eyebrows. “Come on guys, get out of those wet clothes or you all gonna be sick”, Lisa said and clapped her hands to get the guys moving. All of the boys stripped down to their underwear and Charly helped Lisa pick up the clothes and laying them out to dry. She couldn’t help but to risk a look at Liam again in just his boxers and again couldn’t help but biting her lip. “Go get a hot shower”, Lisa admonished the boys and showed them to the showers of the dressing room. “I rather need a cold one”, Charly mumbled to herself.  
To distract herself, she helped Lisa and Lou to pack up their stuff. Charly felt tired and sat down on the couch. The panic attack earlier today took more energy than she had expected. She took her phone out and scrolled through her twitter. She had totally forgotten about the Instagram picture Harry had posted this morning back in Rome, but the fans definitely haven’t. The picture had over 500k likes and thousands of comments. A lot found it funny, but many were not very fond of Charly lying in bed with Liam and Harry. Oh, if they only knew!, she thought to herself. She liked the picture herself and commented, “Waking them up in the morning is quite a challenge. It was not as fun as it looks”. As she wanted to log out of instagram, she saw a new comment on the picture, right below her own.  
“Looks like you coped quite well”, she read silently in her head. “Asshole”, she spat out. “Me?”, Niall asked behind her, rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He had his pants back on, but was bare-chested. “Oh no, sorry”, Charly shook her head and was really mad. How could he bring it into the public place of social media? Wasn’t it hard enough that had updated his Facebook relationship status?  
“Just a dumb and inappropriate comment from Ethan”, she explained shortly. “Are you okay?”, he asked and looked honestly sorry. “I’m still deciding”, she said jokingly and shrugged her shoulders. Niall put on his shirt and sat down next to her. Charly continued to check her notifications on Twitter. Most of the comments of the fans were really funny and nice and some asked her to follow her.  
“Niall, let’s go”, Zayn said and was almost out of the door for another party. “No thanks, I think I’m gonna stay here tonight”, Niall waved off. “Why, are you sick?”, Zayn stopped in his movement looking shocked. Niall never said “No” to a party. “No, don’t be silly. I just thought I stick around and keep Charly’s company”, he said. Charly, who wasn’t following the conversation before, looked up from her phone because she had heard her name. “What? Oh no, you don’t have to stay back because of me. I’m a big girl, I can keep it together”, Charly said. “No problem, I’m always out. One night in would do me good, probably”, Niall defended his decision. “I’m meeting up with Liam later and we’ll probably bend our ears the whole night how awful our exes are”, Charly said and had to hold back a smile. Amongst other things, she thought to herself. “It will be boring for you, really. Go out, have fun and do some things you might regret in the morning”, she said and got up. “But don’t get anyone pregnant. I’m not in the mood to fight off the press AND your mother”, she said and messed up his still moist hair before she walked out.


	15. Chapter 15

Charly impatiently waited for Lisa to fall asleep as she lay in her bed herself with her laptop on her lap, searching through the internet without a real interest. She went on Tumblr as she sometimes did to see what the fans wrote about One Direction and some of the art work was really good. Also there were a lot of funny memes and comments of the fans she always loved to read.  
As always after a concert Tumblr was filled with the concert pictures and the fans REALLY loved the wet look the boys pulled off tonight. As she scrolled through the One Direction tag she suddenly stopped at a picture that showed Niall and her from earlier today as they were waiting outside for the taxi between the tour busses. On this particular picture, Niall was hugging her and it looked like the two were kissing. As she scrolled down a bit to read the caption of the picture, which said “Niall and Charly kissing?!?! WTF?!”. Charly had to laugh out loud and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to not keep Lisa from falling asleep. This was just ridiculous. Niall and she were just friends.  
As she scrolled even further she found a whole discussion going on if Niall and Charly were either really dating or just making out. Some thought it would be cool, that they even would make a great couple and they already had a nickname for them. Nially. Some said something like she probably had already been through the whole band by now if it was her style. This definitely was NOT her style, Charly thought to herself, but then, on the other hand, she was waiting for Lisa to fall asleep so she could sneak out to sleep with Liam. But that was just casual sex between friends and really good sex, to be honest. If Charly was really honest to herself, she got a bit attached to Liam because he made her feel like no man before which was easy since there had only been Ethan and he just made her feel like crap right now. But was she falling for Liam? She couldn’t say. The sex was great, but beyond…she wasn’t sure if she was feeling the way she had always dreamed of feeling about true love. Like not being able to sleep without him next to her and that her cheeks would hurt from all the smiling when thinking about him. That he was able to make her laugh and turn her on equally strong.  
Charly wanted to twitter sort of a statement that she was definitely NOT dating Niall or acting with him in any romantic matter, but then Lisa started to snore. That was a clear sign that she was asleep. So Charly quickly closed her laptop, slipped out of bed and grabbed her own keycard. She sneaked out of the room as silent as she could and ran on her tiptoes over to Liam’s single room. She quickly knocked and the sound echoed through the empty corridor. It took him a while but then he opened the door. “Hey”, she said smiling and excited for what would come next, but as she saw his face, the smile quickly faded. “Are you okay?”, she asked. “No”, he said straight forward and walked back into his room, leaving the door open for her to follow. She closed the door and followed him to the bed where he had sat down. He had his laptop on his lap and the saddest face she had ever seen.  
“She has a new boyfriend”, he said and turn the laptop around. She sat down at the end of the bed and pulled the screen towards her. It showed a picture of Sophia and a quite good looking guy, as Charly had to admit, but not to Liam. But they were surrounded by other people, a real group photo. “This could be ANYBODY. There are loads of other people in this picture too, Liam”, she said, crawled to the top of the bed and sat next to him, pulling the laptop on her lap. “No, look how he stands next to her, putting his hand on her hip. And there, do you see how close her face is to his?”, he said and pointed at the screen. “If I remember correctly, there are hundreds of picture of you and fans like that and you’re not dating any of them. I think you’re reading way too much into this”, Charly said and handed the laptop back over.  
“I don’t think so”, Liam said, not willing to move from his point of view on this. “I had sort of an Ethan moment too today”, Charly said and twisted her fingers. “What happened?”, he asked and slowly moved his stare away from the picture of Sophia. “He left a mean comment on Harry’s Instagram picture from this morning. Something like, I have gotten over our break-up quickly because the pic showed us three in bed. So dumb”, she told him and shook her head. She was really furious and felt humiliated. Okay, the fans probably didn’t know who Ethan was, but those fans also could hack into airport security cameras so who knows…  
“That’s just stupid. He’s the asshole who cheated on you, so you have every right to be over him as quickly as you want to”, Liam said, took her hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly. “It just frustrates me that he seems to can’t let go. He broke it off and now he’s acting like I broke up with him, saying that I need time to myself and now hooking up with everyone that comes along”, Charly said and exhaled in frustration. “You’re definitely not hooking up with everyone…just with me”, he said and winked with a smile.  
Hooking up with him tonight was her original plan when she came to his room, but he didn’t look like he was into it tonight, but now… “Oh, shut up”, she said and pushed his face away with her hand. He looked back at the laptop screen and the smile on his face washed away. Charly watched him transform from the little flirt to a sad puppy again. “For god’s sake, Liam! Enough with that, you’re torturing yourself for nothing”, Charly spoke up and pushed the screen of the laptop down and pushed it to the end of the bed. She turned back around and sat back on her heels. “As a friend, I’m here to help you and to distract you from your misery”, she said. “What can I do to help you? What can I do to distract you?”, she asked him. He looked up at her face, scanned it and then a smirk appeared on his. His hand reached out to grab the hem of her tight top and pulled it down until half her boobs were shown. “I could think of a thing…or two”, he said and caught a short glimps of her boobs before looking back up at her eyes again.  
“What doesn’t one do for a good friend”, Charly sighed and crawled up to Liam. She sat across his lap, one leg on either side. “You might as well take it off”, she said with a low, sexy voice and put her arms up. Liam got hold of the top again and pulled it over her head.  
Outside, the rain was still pouring and the wind was blowing hard, but Charly managed to completely forget about it as she felt Liam’s lips on her neck. She threw her head back and sighed. Her hands ran through his hair and rested on his cheeks. She bent down to place a soft kiss on his lips which quickly turned into a deep, rough one. With her hands in his neck, she kept him close to her while she started to grind her hips against his.  
He only pulled away to take off his shirt and tossed it on the floor. He cupped her face and pulled her lips back down on his. While his left hand rested in her neck, his right hand made his way to her back to the clasp of her bra. With one quick move he managed to flip it open. “Nice move”, Charly smiled at his lips and felt him smile as well. His fingers pulled down the straps of her bra slowly and the slight scratch of the fabric on her skin gave her goose bumps all over her body.  
When the bra was gone, she tossed her head back as she felt Liam’s lips closing around her hard nipple and he started to suck on it. His tongue flicked it over and over again and she started to rock her hips into his crotch to get some release. His hard dick pressed against her thigh.  
She started to kiss him again, her tongue exploring his mouth, as her hands wandered down his chest and abs to his crotch, untying his pants and reaching inside with one hand. She lifted her hips up just enough to get a good grip of his boner. “Oh god”, Liam pressed out and bit the part of her shoulder where his mouth had started kissing it. She slowly started stroking it and pulled his pants down over his boner with her other hands. “Let’s get you out of that”, she whispered at his ear and licked and kissed the skin behind his it.  
With a quick move, he had pushed her over on the mattress and was above her. He gave her a deep, passionate kiss and then sat up to take off his pants that were already sliding over his bum. While he was reaching over to his nightstand to grab a condom that was already lying out, she quickly got off her pants and tossed them aside. As Liam was away from her she kinda got out of her trance for a second and caught the sound of the ongoing weather storm outside the hotel which had grown stronger. A deep and loud thunder rolled in the sky and made Charly jump in bed. Liam didn’t noticed that since he was busy putting on the condom.  
As he was back above her, she was genuinely happy that she had someone to hold on to. Now, she was the one needing a distraction. She pulled his face down and into a kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. Liam supported himself on his lower arms next to Charly’s head while his knee spread her legs so he could move between them. Liam sat back up, bent her knees and pushed them down on either side, causing her to spread wide for him. He instinctively licked his lips as he looked down at her wet center. “You’re so ready for me”, he said, swiping his finger through her folds. “’Cause I’ve been waiting for this the whole evening”, Charly said after closing her eyes for a second to enjoy his touch. “I know, I saw you on stage. Took me quite a bit to hold myself back”, he said as he placed himself in front of her entrance. “Well, you handled it quite well there. I didn’t see a boner at all. And believe me…I checked”, she commented, looking at him with a playful smirk and bit her lower lip.  
Liam pushed down her knees even further as he slowly entered and stretched her with every inch. Charly threw her head back and grabbed the sheets with a tight grip. “Oh god”, she moaned loudly. As he was completely inside, he almost completely pulled out to play the same game again. After the fourth time, Charly pushed his hands off her knees and put her legs around his waist. With her heels, she pushed his bum towards her body to keep him close. “Stop fooling around and fuck me”, Charly hissed at his ear and her fingernails scratched his bum above her feet. She could actually feel the goose bumps on his skin.  
Liam followed her wish and picked up the pace quite quickly. Both of them were heavily moaning with every thrust and Charly soon felt the warm feeling in her stomach. It was building up pretty strong and she felt like coming every second now. A bright lightning struck outside their hotel window and just a second later the loudest thunder she had ever heard sounded in the sky. Charly was so scared that she wrapped her arms tight around Liam’s upper body and dug her nails into his skin. Liam interpreted her actions wrong and said, “Oh yeah, baby. Come for me”, he pressed out and uncontrollably thrust into her. She had that warm feeling in her stomach again. Liam came grunting at her neck, rocking his hips hard against hers. “Don’t stop, Liam…don’t…stop”, Charly mumbled and pushed her hips towards him to get that little bit more movement that she needed to come herself.  
She didn’t come as hard as last time, but it was still good. It were different and harder circumstances this time for her, but the main reason was to distract Liam from being miserable and that seemed to have worked out.  
He rolled over next to her and Charly closed her legs. “That was good”, Liam commented out of breath. “Feel distracted?”, Charly asked with a smirk. “From what?”, he asked. His mind was completely blank, just not able to catch a thought. “So it worked”, Charly said and held her hand up for high five. “Yeah”, Liam said and high-fived her. Charly didn’t know what had come over her and took down her hand irritated. They were having sex as friends after all, so keeping it causal with a post-orgasm-high-five was probably not the worst thing to do. She was actually being afraid of getting too attached to Liam because of all the good sex they had so far.  
“Well, I should get back to my room”, Charly said, but didn’t move. She felt so tired and getting up was the last thing she wanted to do. “Mhm”, Liam moaned. He felt very sleepy himself. “But I don’t want to get up, I’m too sleepy she said and rolled over so she could rest her head on Liam’s chest. He put an arm around her and kept her close to him. “Then don’t go”, Liam mumbled and was half asleep already. “Just 5 minutes, then I’ll go”, Charly mumbled within 20 seconds she was asleep, listening to the sound of Liam’s heart.

A loud thunder made Charly sit up straight in bed. It took her a second to realize where she was. She looked down at Liam, who was still butt naked, just like herself. It was still dark outside. As she looked on Liam’s phone on the nightstand, she saw that it was 3:23 am in the morning. She quickly, but carefully moved out of bed and got dressed. She covered Liam with a blanket, grabbed her keycard and left.  
As she walked into her room as silent as possible, she quickly got into bed, which felt cold and lonely. That she was practically alone, her mind focused on the thunderstorm still raging outside and gave her a hard time falling asleep again. When she saw the sky getting lighter again and still no sleep in sight, she got up to borrow some of Lisa’s ear plugs to shut out the strong wind and heavy rain against her window pain. As it was finally silent around her, she quickly dozed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think about it =)


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my last pre-written chapter, so for the nex one you might have to wait even longer, but it's not the end of the story =)

Charly looked through clothes hanging on the clothes rack in the H&M store. Just a few hours ago, they had landed in Barcelona after a very short night for her. She also overslept because neither of the two girls had heard the alarm on her phone since both had earplugs in. It was Paul that came to wake her up. She felt like a zombie and tried to catch up on some sleep on the plane, but due to the strong wind, it was kind of a bumpy flight.  
When they had arrived at their hotel and after she had seen the pool, she thought a good swim would wake her up, but therefore she would need a bikini. The crew had some time off in the morning and after their lunch together at the hotel, they would start into the day of work. After the rainy day in Switzerland, the sunny and very warm Barcelona was a nice change of weather. That’s why she wore some of her new clothes like a white tee with a tropical print and her new jeans shorts that ended after a third of her thigh and not those “lesbian jeans shorts”, as Lisa had called her favorite pants from before.  
Charly looked at the variety of Bikini’s hanging in front of her. She had decided to do her little shopping trip without Lisa or she would probably end with half of the shop in her hands. Her credit card could not stand another Lisa-shopping-escapade. Charly reached for a white Bikini in her size and decided to try it on. That one followed one with floral print and a bathing suit with midriff cutouts in royal blue. She went to try them on. The white bikini didn’t make her look as pale as she actually was so that one would be bought. The floral print one didn’t really fit and made her body appear in a weird shape. The bathing suit covered all the right parts that she was usually insecure about, but she slowly got more comfortable with her body, mostly with the help of Liam. The way he had looked at her again last night…just the thought of it made her bit her lip right there in the fitting room. She just couldn’t help herself but imagine how Liam would look at her in that bathing suit and how his hands would fit right in the cutouts on her sides. She decided that her credit card could handle two more items and bought the white bikini and the blue bathing suit.  
She kept wandering around the city, taking some pictures. She thought about how the boys were not really able to do this normal tourist sightseeing stuff because they could not take like 5 steps without being mobbed by fans. She posted a picture of the amazing Sagrada Familia and posted it on Twitter with the words “’Holy’ shit!”. Charly got a bit lost in the streets since she had forgotten to bring a map of the city with her. So she missed the lunch at the hotel and went straight to the venue. She had sent a quick text to Lisa to say she was okay, just a bit lost, so nobody started to worry about her. She had forgotten that in Spain they had Siesta around noon, so it was quite hard to get a taxi.  
Charly finally got to the venue at about 2 pm. Niall, Harry, Louis and Liam were playing American football with the bodyguards and Mike, or at least, that’s what they had in mind. She had to walk right through the playing crowd to get to the entry of the stadium. “CHARLY RUN!”, Harry screamed and motioned her to run back to where she was coming from. “What?”, she asked, taken by surprised and saw the other boys came running towards her. “AHHH!”, she screamed out, dropped her things and started running back. Harry threw the ball and before she even had the chance to catch it, Niall picked her up at her waist and spinned her around. She was just happy that he didn’t tackle her to the ground since they were not playing on grass.  
“I give up, I give up”, Charly shouted and put her hands up. Niall had quite a tight grip around her waist and just now she had realized that he had lifted her with just one arm, which she thought was quite impressive. He let her down again and she pulled down her shirt that was almost all up to her boobs. “Charly, you’re shit at American Football”, Harry joked. “Maybe that’s the reason I was not playing in the first place until you forced me to”, Charly defended her bad skills of catching a ball. “He didn’t force you…I know you want it, ‘cause you’re a good girl”, Louis started singing. “Shut up, Robin ‘not so’ Thicke”, Charly snapped back at him. “Uh, good one”, Louis admitted impressed and held his hand up for a high five. Charly picked up her things and gave Louis a high five as she walked by.  
As she walked into the dressing room, she found Zayn standing at the other end of the room. He had covered almost the whole with white paper. “Any ideas yet?”, Charly stepped next to Zayn who was staring at the blank wall of paper in front of him. Lately, he had some trouble getting on paper what he had in mind, some artistic difficulties within himself. “Not really, it’s really annoying”, he sighed. “You know, just a few days ago, I read about a thing called 3D painting”, she told him. “Never heard of that”, Zayn asked interested. “It’s when you include objects or people in your paintings and paint over them, using them as a screen, so to say. Like in that Gotye video for ‘Somebody that I used to know’”, she explained and again stared at the white canvas in front of them. “That’s actually a cool idea”, Zayn said and rubbed his chin. Charly could see the ideas spinning in his head. “You wouldn’t actually volunteer for that, would you?”, he asked and had a hopeful smile on his face. “Oh, I thought you’d never ask”, Charly responded smiling. “Should I wear less or…?”, she asked and looked down at her body covered in a top and shorts. “Yeah, less would be better. Maybe you could…”, “I’m not gonna do it naked”, Charly intervened immediately. “Oh god no, I would never ask of that. What I wanted to say was if you could wear a bikini or your underwear”, Zayn ended his sentence. “Oh okay, sure. I actually bought a white bikini this morning, I have it here”, she said. “Oh no, I’m not asking you to waste your new stuff”, Zayn shook his head. “Don’t worry, it’s just an H&M bikini, I’ll go change”, Charly waved off his concerns. She took her bag and quickly changed in the bathroom of the venue. She put her hair up in a ponytail and came back out. “Is that okay?”, she asked. “That will work”, Zayn said and smiled.  
Charly stepped in front of the big paper put up on the wall. “Where do you want me?”, she asked. Zayn thought about it for a few moments. “What about the right corner?”, he said. “Your right or my right?”, she asked. “Oh sorry, my right”, he answered and she took a few steps to her left. “Now lean against the wall, put your right arm up and put you left over your stomach”, he directed her and corrected her position himself for a few centimeters. He picked one of his cans up and started shaking it. “Wait a second, does the color come off again?”, she asked, now a bit skeptical. “Ehm…”, Zayn checked the can description. “I guess…”, he mumbled. “Very reassuring, but okay. Let’s get this over with”, Charly rolled her eyes but smiled.  
Zayn started to draw the rough draft with a pencil on the paper and used a pen on her body. After that he took the spray cans and it got messy. When he came closer to her body he stopped. “I’m doing it now, are you still in it?”, he asked. “Of course, this will look great. And don’t be prudish, just go for it, okay?”, Charly reassured him. So Zayn sprayed on her body and at first she twitched at the cold feeling of the paint on her skin. “Do you use spray cans only or also other paints?”, she asked to break the silence. “Actually only spray cans”, he mumbled. He was so focused on painting that it was useless to try to get a conversation going.  
“Now turn your head to the right and close your eyes, please”, Zayn said and Charly did like she was told. He sprayed her whole face and then added some details. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but she was sure it was great. She had seen some of his stuff before and it was simply amazing. “Okay, now don’t move, I’m gonna take some pictures”, he said after a while and she heard him going a few steps back. “That looks so great, probably the best I’ve ever done. Thanks for the idea and thanks for doing that”, Zayn said while he took picture after picture. “Are you done? Can I move?”, she asked a few moments later. “Yeah, I’m done. Thanks for doing this”, he said and Charly walked a few steps forward, careful not to touch the painting. She turned around and looked at it. She could clearly see where she was standing. “That looks amazing, Zayn”, she admired his work. “Thank you. And it also looks quite cool with the blank spot. You can totally see your shape”, Zayn said, also looking at his work again. “Can I have a look at the pictures with me in it?”, she asked. “Sure, here”, he said and held up his phone. She didn’t take it in her hands because she was still covered in paint. “Wow, how cool is that?”, she said and smiled. Zayn zoomed in on one of the pics and her smile disappeared. As she saw how her hips and stomach looked, she went pale underneath the paint. She had to do some work-out as quickly as possible.  
The door opened and the group of people that were playing football before came in. “Woah, what is going on in here?”, Louis asked as he spotted the almost naked behind of Charly next to Zayn. Both of them turned around and so the men could see that Charly’s front was covered in paint. “Zayn painted me like one of his French girls”, Charly quoted Rose from Titanic and had to laugh at her own joke. “You guys just did that?”, Harry asked impressed as he came closer to the now filled canvas on the wall. “Well, Zayn did that. I was just standing there”, Charly said. “But you had the idea. Thanks again, it was really cool”, Zayn corrected Charly and gave her some credit.  
Niall couldn’t help but give most of his attention to Charly in her bikini. There wasn’t much to see because of all the paint, but when she turned around, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her butt. Oh, what wouldn’t he give to being able to just squeeze it right now. “Show me the pictures”, Harry said to Zayn and got Niall out of his trance. Zayn handed Harry his phone and Louis stepped next to him to also get a look.  
“I better go take a shower and try to remove that paint while it’s fresh. I hope it comes off”, Charly said and walked towards the showers of the dressing room. “If you need any help to brush it off, just shout”, Liam said to her as she walked past him. For a second she was shocked that he had said that in front of everybody. But then she reminded herself that he was just joking around and being “normal”. “I think I can handle that, thanks”, she replied, but winked at him before she left the room.


	17. Chapter 17

“He’s a dead man”, Charly said out loud as she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had rubbed and brushed her body several times, especially her face, but her skin still showed a light version of all the colors Zayn had sprayed on her, mixed with red from scrubbing her skin like a maniac. “He’s so dead”, she said again. She looked ridiculous.  
When her skin hurt from all the scrubbing, she gave up, got dressed again and stepped out. “Oops”, Zayn said, when he saw her still covered with paint. “I give you oops…you said they come off”, Charly snapped at him. “To my defense, I said ‘I guess’”, Zayn put his hands up in defense. “Oh love, what happened to you?”, Lou said as she came into the dressing room. “Zayn happened to me”, Charly pouted. “You said, it was okay and the pictures are really amazing”, Zayn said. “I know, I know, but…look at that”, Charly said and pointed up and down her body. “What pictures?”, Lou asked. Zayn took out his phone and showed her the pictures of his 3D painting. “It was Charly’s idea actually, it’s called a 3D painting”, he explained and Lou scrolled through the pictures. Charly took a look at it again and swallowed. She really needed to work out. She was so caught up in her, what she thought, chubby appearance, that she couldn’t even fully appreciate Zayns amazing painting.  
Right at that moment, Mark came in. “Hey Mark, do you have a minute?”, she asked and walked over to him. “What happened to you, love?”, he asked surprised at Charly’s appearance. “Zayn, but that’s a different topic”, she waved off. She would probably hear this all day.  
“I was wondering if you’re working out with one of the guys tonight after the show and if I could join you?”, she asked. “Sure, I’m taking Harry to the gym tonight. If you’re still up, you can come. It’ll probably be around midnight”, Mark said. “Midnight?”, Charly asked with big eyes. “Of course. The show ends around 9:30 to 10 pm, what you think when this would take place?”, Mark chuckled. “Alright, alright”, Charly gave in. “Just let me know when you guys get going”, she said and walked back to the others.  
“My god, what happened to you?”, Lisa asked surprised as she also walked into the room. “Zayn”, said everybody present in unison. “I have an all-body-peeling, it might help you”, Lou said. Charly sat down on the couch next to Niall. She pulled up her shirt over her stomach and looked at the mess that was her skin right now. You could easily see where her hand has been on her stomach. “I look ridiculous”, Charly said and Niall looked over to her and his eyes immediately went down to her bare skin. “You look beautiful”, Niall mumbled. “What?”, Charly asked because she didn’t understand him. “Nothing”, he shook his head and turned away because he felt his cheeks blushing.  
“Come on, let’s take care of your body”, Lou appeared in front of Charly and held her hand out. Charly grabbed it and Lou pulled her off the couch. “Lisa, can you come help me? This is a work for two”, Lou asked her friend for help. “I can help”, Harry volunteered. “Nice try, Styles. Go look for someone else to scrub”, Lisa turned him down. It was always the same with those boys.  
The three girls drove back to the hotel and went up to Lou’s room. In the bathroom, Charly stripped down to her underwear and Lou and Lisa started on her legs, tightly rubbing the peeling gel on her skin. “Shit, that hurts”, Charly whined. Her skin was all red and glowing. “Zayn is so dead”, she mumbled to herself. “Knock it off, Charly. He said it was your idea so you blew your chance to get revenge”, Lou said and started scrubbing Charly’s tummy. “I’m actually scared for my boobs”, Charly said and looked at her breasts. “Yes…that will be a tough one”, Lisa said and looked up from scrubbing Charly’s right leg. “Maybe I’ll just keep it like that. It has to come off someday”, Charly said and wanted to back out of the bathroom, but the two girls grabbed her at her knees and stopped her from storming out.  
“Stop that, we’re finishing it and you will not let paint on you again”, Lou pulled out the mother in her and Charly actually felt a bit intimidated. She remained silent, except for a few more weeps when they got to the sensitive skin parts. “Now get in the bathtub, we will cover you with cold water. It will ease the pain”, Lou said and helped Charly into the bathtub. She lay down and Lou turned on the water. “Shit, that’s cold”, Charly hissed and wanted to get out, but Lou pushed her back down.  
A few minutes later, Charly was still in the bathtub, Lou and Lisa sitting on the floor. “You look like a lobster”, Lisa said and badly held back a laugh. Lou turned her head towards Charly and scanned her. A second later, the three women were laughing out loud. Lisa’s phone started ringing and she fumbled it out of her back pocket. “Hey, sweetie, how are you?”, she asked and her voice got high. Charly raised an eyebrow. “Then tell him, he should not be such a fucking tease and give it back. Do you want me to talk to him?”, she asked and turned a bit away from the other two. “Okay, but if it doesn’t get better then call me again. Alright…okay…love you too, sweetie”, she said and hung up. “Was that your boyfriend?”, Charly asked. She thought Lisa was single, she had never mentioned a boyfriend or someone she was seeing. “No, my brother”, she answered. “You have a brother?”, Charly asked surprised. “3”, Lou added. “Three brothers?”, Charly’s eyes got big. How come she never talked about them?  
“Why do I not know that?”, Charly asked. “It’s a bit of a sad story”, Lou said. “It’s not, it’s…just not the perfect family story”, Lisa said and looked down, her smile had disappeared. They all went silent. Charly didn’t know what to say, but she hated those awkward silences. “I bought some bikini’s today. I thought we would go to the pool today, but that’s off”, she finally said and looked at her body. Her jaw was shaking because of the cold water. Her skin didn’t know if it should be red because of the peeling or the cold water.  
“Really? Which ones?”, Lou asked, Lisa still remaining silent. “The white one, Zayn painted over and a bathing suit with midriff cutouts, in royal blue”, Charly told them. “Oh, baby’s first bikini”, Lisa said and the smile looked a bit forced, but when it’s about fashion, she couldn’t stay out of the discussion. “You need to show it to us. Maybe you can wear it tomorrow in Madrid”, she said. “You think, I’ll be able to lay out in the sun tomorrow already?”, Charly asked Lou. “We’ll have to see how your skin reacts to the peeling, but I don’t see a problem”, she answered. Lisa’s phone rang again and she sighed. “I’ll take that outside”, she said and got up.  
“Okay, you gotta tell me what’s going on there, I’m dying to know”, Charly said to Lou as soon as the door of the bathroom was closed. “Alright, but don’t tell her you know”, Lou said and turned to Charly and lowered her voice. “Lisa has three brothers, all younger than her. Her mother died while giving birth to her third brother. She was 13 back then”, Lou told her. “Oh my god! That’s horrible”, Charly said and put her hand in front of her mouth. “Absolutely horrific, if you ask me”, Lou said. “And from that moment on, she felt like she had to be the mother and practically raised the boys with her father, completely ignoring the fact that she was still a child or, better said, a teenager herself. I guess, that’s why she goes on so many parties while on tour. She kinda wants to re-live that part of her life she had missed out on”, Lou continued. “And how old are her brothers?”, Charly asked, still processing the information she had just received. “Ian is 18, Kevin is 15 and Henry is 13”, Lou recalled. “Wow”, Charly let out. “That’s why she’s so overprotective of the boys, they’re like her brothers to her. Especially Harry, since he’s the youngest. Just like Henry at home”, Lou said.  
Charly was shaking in the bathtub, not completely due to the fact that she was still sitting in cold water. “I think you can come out now”, Lou said and got up. She helped her out and handed her a towel. Charly gladly put it around her and tried to get warm again. She started to rub her skin dry with the towel, but immediately stopped because it still hurt. So instead, she just dabbed her skin dry and got dressed again.  
When she came out of the bathroom, she stopped as she looked at Lisa. She didn’t really know what to say. “I know Lou told you, so just let it out”, Lisa said as she saw Charly’s glum facial expression. So Charly just went over and hugged Lisa. “I’m so sorry, Liz”, she mumbled at her ear and pressed her tightly against her chest. “Thanks, sweetie”, Lisa said and patted Charly’s back. “You’re the only one who’s allowed to call me that since…you know”, Charly said and thought back at the skype date she had had with Ethan just a few days ago, although it felt like ages. With all that had happened between Liam and her. “I know”, Lisa said and smiled again.

They had to go back to the venue since the lads still had some appointments before the show tonight. “How’s your skin?”, Zayn asked when she came back. “Red and angry, but it’s gonna be fine, I guess”, she shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry about the paint. I don’t usually paint people”, he tried to explain. “Don’t worry, Zayn. Like you said before, you said ‘I guess’ and I still let you do it. So it’s also my fault. Also…”, she looked at her arms stretched out. “It’s barely showing anymore”, Charly said and hoped it was true. “Anyway, again, I’m sorry”, Zayn said and pulled her into a hug.  
“Let’s get you to your interviews”, Charly said as they ended the hug. “I don’t want to”, Zayn pouted. “I know”, Charly said and started to push at his back to get him moving towards the car waiting for the boys. “Do I have time for one more fag?”, Zayn asked. “Absolutely not”, she replied. She hated it when she saw any of the boys smoking. “Oh come on”, Zayn whined. “Stop it”, Charly said and kept pushing him. “Can I call Perrie?”, he asked. “Would you’re little boyfriend heart break if you don’t?”, she asked. “Into a million pieces”, he replied with a puppy-like look on his face. “Then I have to beg you to call her”, Charly said and patted his back.  
The band had tons of interviews today and the whole team went with them. Lisa for the clothes, Lou for the hair and Paul and Charly as the “head of the family” along with the security guards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment =)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish you all a Happy New Year!!
> 
> Thanks to all my readers who waited so patiently for the new chapter, I really hope you like it!
> 
> Enjoy!!

It was about to turn midnight when Charly stepped into the gym right behind Mark and Harry. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this”, Charly mumbled to herself, but Mark heard her. “Nobody’s forcing ya, love. You wanted to be here”, Mark said. “I know”, Charly exhaled loudly. The three were the only ones there. They went over to the treadmills and put down their things.  
“Go easy on me, Mark, okay?”, Charly asked and stepped onto the treadmill. “That’s what she said”, Harry smiled, already on the treadmill next to her and giggled. Charly rolled her eyes. “Harry, that doesn’t work that way. You’re just not good at those ‘that’s what she said’-comments, so let them be, okay?”, Charly said. “Alright guys, less talking, more running”, Mark said and started Charly’s treadmill.  
As a warm-up, they started with a fast walk which Harry turned into running pretty quickly, but he was in a much better shape than Charly. She also felt that her regular bra was not the best running equipment. Just a few minutes into running, Harry took off his shirt. “Do I have to do that too?”, Charly asked as a joke. “Yes, it’s mandatory”, Harry immediately answered. “Shut up, Styles”, Mark said and turned to Charly. “Of course not, it’s totally up to you.” “Then I think, I’ll keep it on for now”, Charly replied and already started to breath heavily.  
Her condition was worse than she thought and she soon had to take a break. While she was drinking some water and rested, Harry started to lift weights. Watching him lift with no shirt got her a chance to see how muscular Harry actually was. She felt herself blushing a bit and quickly looked away. “Let me try that”, Charly said and got up. “You’re sure? It’s really heavy”, Harry said skeptically. “I don’t want to run off with it. Just let me try”, Charly rolled her eyes and held out her hands. Harry slowly put the weight into her hands, but didn’t let go of it completely. “Oh wow”, Charly said as she was barely able to lift it and was glad that Harry still held on to it. “Try to lift it”, Mark said with a grin, standing next to the two, ready to jump in if one of them loses strength.  
“Ahhh shit”, Charly pressed out as she managed to lift it once. “Wow Harry, I’m impressed”, she said as the weight was back safe in Harry’s hands. Before, she had seen him lift it about 10 times in a row. Harry smiled proud and did a few more lifts. “So we can cross off lifting weights from your list of exercises”, Mark said. “No, don’t cross it out. Just give me the lady-ones. I don’t want to break my nails”, Charly replied with a high pitched voice.  
“Okay, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s measure”, Mike said and took out a measuring tape. “What are you doing?”, Charly asked with an eyebrow pulled up. “We do this every time”, Harry said proud. “To see the progress”, Mark explained further. “I think you can see that without measuring it”, Charly said and her view wandered off to Harry’s arms. “Liking the gun show, huh?”, Harry asked as he winked at her and started flexing his muscles and putting on a show.  
“Alright, enough now, you two”, Mark said. It was late and he wanted to go to bed. So Mark started on Harry’s arms and took notes. “Can you measure me too?”, Charly asked. “Sure”, Mark said and put the measuring tape around her left arm first and then her right arm. “Can you measure my chest?”, Charly asked and Mark and Harry looked up. “Just for fun. Haven’t done it in a while. Want to see if there’s any progress”, Charly laughed. “Alright”, Marks said and put the tape around her back. Charly could see that Mark was a bit uncomfortable by the fact that his hands were that close to her breasts. “Ah…98 cm”, Marks said and nodded impressed. “Wow, that much?”, Harry asked. “It’s a pleasure and a burden”, she said. “That bad?”, Mark asked. “Yeah, my back’s killing me sometimes”, she said and arched her back. “My wife’s got the same problem, I know great exercises. I can show you”, he volunteered. “That would be awesome, thank you”, Charly said.  
“We should get going, it’s late”, Mark said and packed up his stuff. Harry put his shirt back on and together they left the gym. Charly felt her limbs getting heavy and tired and followed Mark and Harry with shuffling steps. While they waited for the elevator, Charly rested her head on Harry’s shoulder and he put his arm around her shoulders. “Do I have to carry you up, sleepy head?”, Harry asked her. “You might”, Charly mumbled with closed eyes. Okay, training after midnight wasn’t something she would continue doing.  
“I think we’ve got some company”, Mark said and lightly nodded towards the lobby. Harry turned his head around to find a few fans waving at him and holding up their phone’s. With a pling the elevator doors opened and the three of them got in. Harry was relieved that he could get away in the elevator. He wasn’t really up for any pictures or small talk. When they leaned against the elevator walls, Charly rested her head against Harry’s shoulder again. “You know that they’re already talking about it”, Marks said as the elevator started moving. Harry looked down at Charly, who dozed at his shoulder, almost asleep. “I know”, Harry exhaled loudly and rubbed Charly’s shoulder.

When Charly woke up in her bed, she actually wasn’t sure if this all had been a dream or if she really had worked out with Mike and Harry. She felt better than she had expected, but she also hadn’t really done much last night. Charly got up, woke up Lisa and took a shower. She still needed to pack up her stuff before they would leave to fly to Madrid in a few hours.  
Charly called the reception to order taxis to the airport and the group gathered downstairs at the lobby. Fans were waiting outside and Paul allowed the boys to go outside and talk to them for 10 minutes before the cars arrive. While the bodyguards had their eyes on the boys, Lisa, Lou, Charly and the others got the luggage out to the taxis. “Alright, lads, time to say goodbye”, Paul collected the boys one after another. “Adios”, Harry waved at the fans before he got into the taxi. Some girls were even chasing the car. Charly would probably never get used to that. “This is crazy”, Niall said, watching the girls outside running down the street. “It’s like you’re reading my mind”, Charly said and gave him a quick smile. Niall smiled back and felt an irrational joy of happiness that he had a little moment with Charly. It was ridiculous how he reached out to any little thing that focuses Charly’s attention on him, even just for a split second. He felt pathetic and disgusted by his pitiful behavior, but when Charly turned her head around and smiled at him again, he just threw all of his concerns overboard.

About 3 hours later, they arrived at their hotel in Madrid. It was really hot outside and everybody hurried up to get the luggage inside. Charly went to the reception to do the check-in. “Hey, bananas”, Harry came up to the reception desk as he spotted the bowl of fruit. “Can I eat them?”, he asked the man behind the desk. “Si, senor”, the man answered smiling. “If I were you, I wouldn’t. They don’t look too fresh if you ask me”, Lisa said next to Harry and didn’t even lower her voice. She didn’t care what the man at the reception would think. “But I’m not asking you, I’m asking him and he said it’s okay. The banana’s okay, right?”, Harry had turned to the receptionist again. “Si, senor”, the man said again. “Are these the only words you know?”, Lisa asked him. “No, senora”, the man still smiled professionally. “I give up”, she threw her hands up and walked a few steps away. Harry grabbed it, smiled satisfied and walked back to the others, while he started to peal the banana. “Harry, don’t eat that”, Lisa admonished him. “He says it’s alright”, Harry repeated and started to eat it.  
“Thank you”, she said to the lady who handed her the keycards to the rooms. “You gonna regret this, Harold”, Lisa said to him while they walked to the elevators. “Mhmm, so delicious”, Harry munched the banana right in front of Lisa’s face. “But don’t call me when you get sick. I tell you, this banana looks wrong”, Lisa said and pushed Harry away with her hand on his face.  
“The hotel as an awesome pool, you guys wanna hang out?”, Lou asked while they moved upstairs in the elevator. “Yeah sure, maybe the sun will bleach out some of the rest paint”, Charly said and held her arms out. Lou brushed over it with her hands. “That actually might help, but it’s almost not showing anymore”, she said. “And you can try out your new bikini”, Lisa added. “Zayn wrecked my bikini, but I can still wear my new bathing suit”, Charly said. “I didn’t wreck it, you said it was okay”, Zayn said at the other end of the elevator. “Yeah, yeah”, Charly waved him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! =)


	19. Chapter 19

When they all had moved into their rooms, the girls got changed and met up at the elevator to go down to the pool. It was shortly to noon and the pool was almost empty, except for some other tourists. Since it was really hot, they laid down on some chairs in the shade under some big umbrellas.  
“This is nice”, Lisa mumbled a few minutes later as they all had laid down, with their sunglasses on and eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sun on their skin. “Mhmm”, Lou and Charly agreed in unison. That’s when Lisa’s phone started ringing. “For god’s sake”, she grunted and took it out of her bag. “Hello?”, she asked a bit angry. “Oh hey, sweetie”, her voice got high. “No, absolutely not”, and it got strict again. “No, not you and certainly not Kevin”, she spoke into her mobile phone. Lou and Charly exchanged a questioning look. “No, shut up, I’m not discussing this with you. I’ll see you three in three weeks…ALONE”, Lisa continued. “Okay, behave and say hi to Dad for me…okay…alright, love you too, sweetie”, she said and hung up. “Those boys are killing me”, she grunted towards the girls. “What’s it this time?”, Lou asked and closed her eyes again. “They wanted to bring some girls to the concert in London. They wanted to impress them by saying they know One Direction”, Lisa shook her head. “Why don’t you let them? I would have pulled that card if I had the chance at their age”, Charly shrugged her shoulders. “Oh no, once I let them, the girls will use them just to meet the boys and I will not let that happen to my little babies. If they have real girlfriends, they can bring them to the show, but not like that”, Lisa shook her head again and sounded like a strict mother. “This is not the first time they’ve tried this. And I want to meet the girls before they come. If you ever see me bringing in one of my brothers with a girl, you know it’s serious between them…so probably never”, Lisa added and lay back down.  
Just a few minutes later, a big shadow appeared in front of Charly and made her open her eyes. “Niall and I are training in 20 minutes. You’re in?”, Mark asked. “Now? It’s way too hot for that”, Charly moaned. “Your call, but I can show you those back exercises we were talking about”, Mark said. “Alright, fine. I’ll meet you in the lobby then”, Charly gave in and Mark walked away again. “Does anyone of you wanna join the work-out?”, Charly asked in the round. “In your dreams, love”, Lou replied with closed eyes. “Alright, then I better get going. I need to buy a sports-bra first. I saw a store by the hotel”, Charly said, before she got up and packed up her stuff. “I’ll see you ladies later?”, she asked. “We’ll still be here”, Lisa said and Lou nodded in agreement.  
Charly rushed to the store to get a sports-bra, which wasn’t easy in her size, but luckily they had one left. It was a really girly, neon-pink one. Not really her kind of style, but she learned to take what she could get and she also got cute gym shorts. Then she went up to her room to get changed into those shorts and a t-shirt over her new bra and came back down to the lobby just in time as Mark and Niall arrived. “Hey Charly, what you’re doing here?”, Niall asked surprised. “She’ll be working out with us today”, Mark explained and had a big gymnastics ball in his arms. “And what’s that for?”, Charly asked and pointed at that ball. “It’s for your back exercises”, he explained. Niall looked between the two and looked as confused as always. “Let’s get going, it’s not getting any cooler outside”, Mark said and led the way outside to the gym’s terrace, which they had all to themselves. Of course none of the local people were crazy enough to train in that heat.  
“You both start with warming up and then you train individually”, Mark said and showed them some moves to warm up their muscles before they really started the work-out.  
After a few minutes Mark stopped them. “Alright, that’s good. Now, Niall, you do the jumps as usual and I show Charly some exercises”, Mark said and took Charly aside. “You sit down on that ball and then you slowly move your body forward until only your neck rests on the ball. Then, you lift your pelvis up and hold that position for a few seconds”, Mark explained and helped Charly to do the exercise correctly and pushed her back up a little bit until she reached the right height where her body was in a straight position. “That, you do about 5 times”, Mark said and went over to Niall, who was following Charly’s moves closely. “No peeking, Horan, focus on your own work”, Mark patted Niall’s back.  
Mark showed Charly some other moves like balancing her belly on the ball and stretching out her left arm and right leg and the other way round. The exercises didn’t seem that hard, but when you did them in the heat of Madrid, they can turn out really tough. “Now take those dumbbells and lay down on your back and just push your hands up. Do that for 30 seconds and then you put your arms together, put them up and bring them down over your head, still holding the dumbbells”, Mark told her what to do next. After she accomplished each of those 30 seconds, she had really started sweating. “Guys, would you mind if I take my shirt off? It’s getting really hot out here”, Charly complained. “No problem”, came Niall’s answer a bit too quick and Mark had to chuckle. Charly took her shirt off and kept on training in her bright pink sports-bra that looked like a short top itself. Niall followed her every move and Mark had to draw Niall’s attention back to his exercises quite a few times.  
“To relax your back between the exercises or during the day, you could do the McKenzie Cobra”, Mark said. “The what?”, Charly asked surprised and had to chuckle. “The McKenzie Cobra”, Mark repeated. “You put your hands on your back for support and then you bend backwards. Go try”, he said and took a step back. Charly put her hands on her sweaty back as told and bended backwards as far as she could. It hurt and she let out a long moan while she moved backwards to relieve the pain. “Shit, that’s tough”, she said as she came back up. “I know, but when you do it several times in a row it gets easier and it eases your pain a little”, Mark explained. “I need some water now. Do you guys want some too?”, Charly asked. “Yes, please. Get you a few bottles”, Mark said as Niall didn’t say anything.  
As Charly got in to get some water for everyone, Niall turned to Mark. “Why did you bring her today?”, Niall asked. “She told me she had some back problems so I showed her some exercises”, Mark answered. “And you came up with that whole bouncing on that big ball over there?”, Niall asked. “Sure”, Mark replied and pulled an eyebrow up. “God bless you, Mark!”, Niall said and hugged his trainer. Mark gave Niall a thoughtful look. “Look, who got the hots for our little Charly”, Mark said and chuckled. “What?!”, Niall’s eyes got big. “No! No, what are you talking about? No, no, no”, Niall shook his head and blushed. “Wow, it hit you pretty hard, huh?”, Mark chuckled. “No, I was just talking about her boobs. I’m a man, I notice such things…only that”, Niall tried to cover up his nervousness. “Got cha, kiddo, got cha”, Mark chuckled and turned away.

After her workout, Charly went up to her room to take a quick shower, got dressed in her bathing suit again and went back down to the pool. Lisa and Lou were still lying there, now joined by Harry, Liam and even Paul. Of course, her chair was taken. “Hey guys”, she greeted them and put her bag down on the floor. “Does any of you fancy a swim?”, Harry got up and asked around. Charly took the opportunity to conquer the chair. “I’m exhausted, I’m not going anywhere”, she said and sighed relieved as she put her feet out. “What did you do?”, Harry asked her. “She’s been working out with Mark”, Lisa answered for her. “Then you have to get up and keep moving or else your muscles will get sore”, Liam said and came over to her chair. “Well, then so it will be. I’m not moving, I’m tired”, Charly said and kept her eyes closed. The next thing she felt were some arms lifting her up from her chair and as she opened her eyes, she was about to be thrown into the pool by Liam. “Liam, don’t you daaareeee”, she screamed as she flew through the air and just in time, she was able to press her nose shut with her fingers, before she hit the water. “Wuhuuuuu!”, Liam screamed as he followed her into the pool by jumping right next to her. “Liam, you little fucker!”, Charly let out, as she came back up again. She swam the one arm length towards him and tried to press him under water, which wasn’t easy.  
It was a bit weird for her being lightly dressed with a half naked Liam in public. She felt like as soon as she got too close to him, everybody could see that they were doing it. “Pool wrestle!”, Harry screamed and also jumped into the pool. “Wait, what?”, Charly asked confused and Liam used that opportunity to push her arms off his shoulders, come back out of the water and pull her close to him. “What are you doing, Liam?”, she hissed close to his face. She was actually scared that they would know now. “What?”, Liam asked with a wink. “If you don’t stop it right now, they will know”, she scolded him. “Oh Charly, don’t be so paranoid”, Liam smiled at her. “Just to proof you wrong, we’re gonna be partners for the first round”, he said. Before she could tell him to fuck off, he had submerged in the pool and she could feel him placing himself between her legs. The next second she was up in the air, holding on tightly to Liam’s head. “Who’s going to be my partner in crime?”, Harry asked around, looking at the people besides the pool. “Lisa?”, he asked hopefully. “Nope”, was her quick answer. “Lou”, Harry said with a tone in his voice like he was sure she would say yes. “If you get me wet, I get you killed, Styles”, she responded with her eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sun.  
“Niall!”, Harry screamed out, happy to see someone who could actually help him out. “Pool wrestling. You in?”, he asked. “Of course”, Niall said, dropped his things to the group of chairs and jumped right in the pool. “I don’t even know what I should do”, Charly complained to Liam, while Harry climbed on Niall’s shoulders. “Are there any rules?”, she asked. “You just have to push him off, that’s all”, Liam quickly said and got in position. “Paul, call it”, Liam said and Paul sat up. “Wait!”, Charly raised her hand. “If anyone touches my boobs, we’ve already won”, she said and looked around, if everyone’s agreed. “And what if I touch them?”, Liam asked with a kinky grin. “Then I get a new partner”, Charly replied without emotion. “Sounds fair”, Paul said. “Ready…set…WRESTLE!”, he shouted and dropped his risen hand. “AAAHHHH!”, Charly screamed out as she saw Harry’s big hands coming towards her.  
At first she struggled a bit to get a good grip of Harry’s arms and was just fighting off his hands. Liam tried to kick Niall off balance without losing grip of Charly. Just at the moment Charly could get hold of Harry’s left hand to instinctively pull him forward, Liam managed to kick away Niall’s legs, so the two of them fell over right next to Liam and Charly. “Yeah!”, Liam raised his hands in victory. “Gimme five, love”, Liam put his hand up to Charly and she high-fived him. “I think, I kinda like this game. So who’s next?”, Charly asked and rubbed her hands together. “This calls for revenge”, Harry said and this time Niall sat on his shoulders.  
“Paul?”, this time Charly called. “Ready…set…WRESTLE!”, he shouted again. Niall was stronger than he looked, Charly had to admit. A few times, Liam started to totter dangerously, but was able to avoid the fall. It might have taken a bit longer this time, but Charly and Liam managed to also win this battle. “I think we have a new dream team. Normally, no one beats the Styles/Horan duo”, Paul said and high-fived Charly and Liam, as they came to the edge of the pool. “They’re not the new dream team, we’re just giving Charly an easy start”, Niall complained, almost looking like an angry kid. “Tell that to ya mother”, Liam laughed at him.  
“Why don’t you play, Lisa? It’s really fun”, Charly asked and rested her arms on the edge of the pool. “I know it’s fun. I just don’t want to play because it’s not fair to you guys”, she explained and put her shades up. “Not fair?”, Liam asked in disbelief. “I have three brothers at home, I had my practice. You don’t stand a chance”, she said and put her shades back down. “Don’t talk such shit, you’re just afraid to break one of your nails”, Niall mocked her. “Alright, that’s it”, Lisa basically ripped her shades off her face, tossed it on the chair and jumped onto Niall in the water. The others couldn’t believe their eyes as they watched her taking over Niall until he was weeping and begged for help. “I’m on her team”, Harry quickly raised his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> Please comment and tell me what you think =)


	20. Chapter 20

“I think you’ve got me pretty hard there”, Charly pulled a face as she touched her right-side ribs. When they were wrestling in the pool earlier, Lisa had accidently kicked her which had caused her to fall off Liam’s shoulders and to end their victory run. Her muscles were also pretty sore from her training with Mark and Niall earlier. “I was telling you, I wasn’t going easy on you guys”, Lisa replied, showing not too much sympathy. “Yeah, but…ouch”, Charly didn’t know what else to say. “Then don’t take deep breaths”, Lisa said. “Why you gotta be so rude, don’t you know she’s human too”, Harry sang as he walked by and Lisa rolled her eyes. “You’re all little pussies”, Lisa grunted and sped up to walk with Paul at the front of the group. “Growing up with all boys didn’t do her well”, Charly grunted to herself as she still held her side. “Need a hand?”, Liam appeared at her side. “I’m fine, thanks. I just try to make her feel guilty, but it doesn’t seem to work”, Charly smiled and linked arms with him. “I grew up with 2 sisters, so I guess I’m the other way round”, Liam shrugged his shoulders and winked at her. “Yes, you’re way nicer than she is”, Charly joked. Lisa was still one of her best friends and sweet as a kitten, when she wanted to be, but competitions seemed to be one of the things she didn’t want to be nice to.  
They all were on their way to a restaurant to eat dinner before another show day tomorrow. Liam sat down next to her and Charly started thinking that they might acted too private around the others. She was afraid that they could find out that they were sleeping together and that would be the end of her career as Paul’s assistant.  
Charly instinctively slid a few inches away from him, just to be sure. “I’m not really hungry, I don’t feel so well”, Harry said at the table. “Told you not to eat that banana”, Lisa said without looking up from her menu. “That’s not it, I’m fine”, Harry quickly changed his mind. “Whatever”, Lisa said. “Hey, you’re a bit bitchy today. PMS?”, Louis asked her with a knowing voice, already nodding his head like he wanted to force the answer YES. Instead of an answer, Lisa just threw the piece of bread in the basket in front of her against his head. Charly snorted as she tried to hold down a laugh. Niall and the rest of the boys weren’t as subtle as Charly and blurted out laughing.   
“Why are you sitting so far away, love?”, Liam asked with a lowered voice. His face was close to Charly’s. Too close for her. She moved a bit away and smiled at him. Liam still looked at her and waited for an answer. “You know why.”, she answered which put a grin on his face. Suddenly she felt a hand on her knee, which could only belong to Liam. Charly’s eyes got wide and she moved it away from her leg. “Are you fucking serious?”, she hissed and turned her body away from him. Liam laughed and licked over his lips. “Everything ok with you two over there?”, Paul suddenly asked them. Charly jumped in her seat and looked over to her boss. “Everything’s fine here, Paul.”, Liam assured him. Paul turned away again to continue his conversation. “Stop it now!”, Charly warned Liam, but had to smile to herself.

To Charly, it felt like she had just gone to bed as she woke up in the middle of the night because the light on Lisas nightstand was turned on. She turned around and saw how Lisa got up and dressed in jogging pants and her top. “Hey, what’s wrong?”, Charly asked sleepy. She checked her phone. Just 2:37 am. “I’m like a mother who senses when her baby is ill”, she mumbled, half-asleep herself and rubbed her eyes. “What?”, Charly asked confused. “Don’t worry about it, go back to sleep”, she waved her off. Lisa walked towards the door as already someone knocked on it. “Hey, what’s up”, she heard Lisa whisper. “Harry’s not feeling well. He wanted me to come and get you”, was Liam’s response. “I told him not to eat that banana from the lobby, it looked weird”, Lisa sighed. “I’ll stay with him for the night, you can have my bed”, Lisa said and next thing Charly heard was the door being closed.  
Suddenly, Charly’s mattress went down a bit. She was lying on her stomach and not able to turn around. “Since we’re awake…”, Liam whispered at her ear. “You are, I’m totally sleeping. Go away”, she mumbled and pushed him away. At least she tried to. “Come on, no one will know”, Liam tried to convince her. “My muscles are so sore, I can barely move”, Charly mumbled into her pillow actually not able to properly move. “If that’s so, let me help you. I already told you to keep moving and I think I know how”, Liam said and she could actually hear the smirk on his lips. “If you touch me, I’m gonna kill you”, Charly said with a much clearer voice now. She really wasn’t in the mood to anything than sleeping right now. “Okay”, he went over to Lisa’s now empty bed and fell asleep immediately, just like Charly.

The next day, when Charly woke up, she wanted to turn around and every fibre of her body hurt. “Oh god, oh god, oh god”, she whined as she turned around slowly to face the ceiling. Her voice woke up Liam in the bed next to her. “Wow, you’re pretty wrecked, huh?”, Liam asked and supported his head on his elbow. “Oh shut up”, Charly said frustrated. “Come on, I help you up”, Liam said and was quick on his feet. “No, really, don’t”, Charly said and shook her head slightly. He pulled her blanket off and smiled at the view he was given, since she was just wearing her underwear. “I’ll have you up in no time”, he said and took her hands in his. For a second she admired his appearance in just boxers which she hadn’t seen last night.  
“No, Liam, really, no, no, no”, she hastily said as Liam started a countdown. “And one!”, he said and quickly pulled her up to her feet. “Oh god, Liam!”, she screamed out as a sharp pain wandered through her whole body in just a split second. What they didn’t know was, that right at that moment, Niall went past Charly’s room. As he heard Charly scream Liam’s name, he immediately stopped like he had been running into a wall. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he listened for more, but there wasn’t any. Was Charly having sex with Liam right now in this room? They were pretty close yesterday…It got Niall thinking. Maybe he should have taken a move earlier and it could be his name she was screaming right now. His stomach turned and now it was him feeling sick.

Charly and Liam got dressed and left the room to check on Harry and Lisa. When they went out of the hotel room, Niall was standing out in the hallway. “Morning”, Liam greeted him and walked right past by him to his room. Niall looked like he had been caught doing something wrong and looked down. “Morning”, he said and quickly walked on to the elevators. Charly found it a bit weird and stared after him while he was waiting. He looked back and gave her an unidentifiable look. That was strange, she thought to herself.  
Before she could get more into it, Lisa was next to her. “And? How’s he doing?”, she asked. “He’s better. After it was all out, he managed to get some sleep, but it was rough on him. I’m on my way to Paul. The guys will have to do their interview round this morning without him, so he can play the show tonight”, Lisa said and had to yawn. “Seems like you didn’t get much sleep yourself, huh?”, Charly asked and patted her arm. “Not really”, she sighed and rubbed her face, before she went on to see Paul. “Those guys are the best practice for motherhood, I tell ya”, Lisa said while walking.

Downstairs at the breakfast, Charly sat down on the free chair next to Niall. He kept his head down and silently ate his cereals. “Where’s Harry?”, Lou asked. Liam was already sitting at the table, opposite her. “He was sick last night, probably from that banana. Lisa spent the night watching him”, Charly explained and leaned backwards in her chair. She closed her eyes from the pain that she felt in her body. She never thought that she was THAT much out of form.  
“And where did you sleep, Liam?”, Niall couldn’t stop himself from asking with a harsh tone in his voice. “In Lisa’s bed”, Liam answered, a bit confused by Niall’s tone. “And what’s up with you, Charly? Sick too?”, Lou asked her. “No, just in pain”, she answered and Liam held down a laugh. “Shut up, Liam”, Charly shot him an angry view. “And what did I miss here?”, Lou asked, knitting her eyebrows. “That jerk over there thought he would be a gentleman today and helped me out of my bed by practically yanking me off the mattress. It. hurt. so. bad!”, Charly sighed every word with closed eyes. “And I made her scream”, Liam giggled.  
Niall’s head shot around to look at Charly. So that was why she had been screaming his name that morning. He couldn’t resist smiling at those new information, although that didn’t mean that really nothing had happened between those two. He felt a bit relieved, but the weight of not knowing still pulled him down.


	21. Chapter 21

Charlys body hurt all over after the intensive gym session with Mark yesterday. She was almost crawling as she walked into the dressing room later that day. “Oh my god, I’m dying. Mark wrecked me yesterday…Shut it, Tomlinson. I know how that sounded”, Charly put her hand up to stop Louis from commenting on what she had just said. She slowly walked over to the couch and sat down next to Niall. “Ah…ah…ah…oh god, ouch”, she moaned as she sat down. “Ah…ah…ah…ahhhh”, she moaned again as she sank back into the cushions. “Does she sound like that during sex?”, Louis asked as a joke and Liam almost said “Yes”, but bit down on his lip to stop himself. “Shut up”, Charly groaned with closed eyes. “Can I get you anything?”, Niall asked friendly. “A new body or water. Whatever’s easier. I prefer the first one though”, Charly said. “I think I’ll try the water first”, he smiled and got up to go over to the table. “So Mark ‘wrecked’ you last night? What exactly did he do? Something his wife needs to file divorce for?”, Louis asked. “You know, sometimes it really amazes me that nobody had killed you yet, Louis”, Charly said. “They don’t dare to”, Louis replied with a smug grin. “If I could move, you’d had to run”, Charly glared at him. “Here you go”, Niall said and handed her the water. “Thank you so much, Niall. You’re the only one that’s good to me”, she said, grabbed his hand with the bottle in it and kissed it because she could not get up to hug him.  
“Hey, you’re up from the dead”, Zayn joked as he saw Harry walking through the door. “Hey, lad. Good now?”, Liam asked. Lisa walked in right behind him. She had been with him all day, like a mother. “Time to get ready, ladies”, Paul came in and clapped in his hands. Everybody got up with a long moan and started their pre-show preparations. Zayn went over to Lou to get his hair done and Liam and Niall went over to Lisa to see what she had picked out for them to wear tonight. Helene, their vocal coach, ran around and made sure, everybody did their warm up.  
Harry on the other hand went over to the now free spot next to Charly and laid down on the couch, placing his head on her lap. She automatically started to run her fingers through his hair. Also, that was one of the few movements that didn’t hurt right now. “Just 5 minutes, okay?”, he mumbled as he closed his eyes. “Of course, honey”, she said and closed her eyes herself, feeling tired of just breathing.

“Louis, what the hell are you doing?”, Lisa asked loudly and got Charly and Harry to quickly open their eyes a few minutes later. Lisa’s eyes got big as she watched Louis step with his left foot on his right one, getting dirt all over his new shoes. “They look so new, that’s weird”, Louis explained, but didn’t stop doing it. “Will you stop now, bloody hell?”, Lisa screamed out. Harry sat up to watch the situation.  
Louis challenged her with his eyes and kept the eye-contact while still stepping on his shoes. “If you step on your shoes one more time I will step on you”, Lisa warned him. Louis looked at her, his right foot hovering over his left one. They fought a silent stare-battle. Then Louis stepped on his foot. “Alright, Tomlinson, you’re done”, she said and started to take off her shoes. “She’s taking her shoes off, Tommo, she’s serious. You better start running now”, Harry said and his eyes wandered hectically between Louis and Lisa with childish excitement. “Oh please”, Louis didn’t take this warning seriously. “Dude, she has three brothers, she will take you down in no time”, Charly commented from the back, still leaned back on the couch. Louis looked to Charly, to Harry and then Lisa. “Run”, Lisa said in a calm sound and the next second Louis started running out of the dressing room, Lisa right behind him. You could hear them out in the hall shouting and running. “I’m sorry for her brothers”, Liam said, now sitting in Lou’s chair. “I’m just jealous that they are able to walk properly”, Chary said and got everyone to laugh, except herself because she was dead serious.

Another 20 minutes later, it was show-time. Everybody was dressed and ready and, most importantly, everybody was alive. “Come on, Charly. Still need to do your job”, Paul said as he walked past her and winked at her sarcastically. She groaned and pouted. Getting up was the last thing she wanted to do right now.  
“Let me help you up”, Niall said, as he suddenly stood in front of her and held a hand out for Charly. Slowly and gently he pulled her up from the couch, nothing like Liam this morning. She stood quite close to him as she was up on her feet and looked up until her eyes met his. “Will you carry me?”, she asked with a little-girl-voice. Niall chuckled. “If you want me to?”, he asked and attempted to wrap his arms around her waist and legs. “I’m just kidding”, Charly playfully punched his arm. “But thanks for the offer”, she smiled at him and started her way to long journey to the side-stage where she always watched the show from. Hopefully, Paul wouldn’t need much from her tonight and she could just watch the show from a chair.

She rethought the offer of Niall to carry her after there had been some problems with the lights during the show and she and one of the mechanics had to run around backstage to fix it without interrupting the show. Charly had pulled herself together, but she was internally weeping. All she wanted was to go back to her room and take a long, hot shower and then fall onto her bed to sleep forever.  
“Don’t forget to watch over the people packing up the gear for Sweden”, Paul reminded her while following the band back to the dressing room. Charly’s head fell to her chest and she grunted in frustration. “Alright”, she sighed and turned around again to walk back into the arena.  
Some of the crew started on the stage while the people were walking out, but they still had to wait until the staff of the arena had cleared the whole area. Some fans refused to go because they thought the boys would come back out to take some pictures. Charly might as well clear that up right now. “Hey girls, did you enjoy the show?”, she greeted them as she came closer to the barricades. “Yeah, they were totally awesome, I’m gonna die!”, one of the girls screamed. “You’re Charly, can I take a picture with you?”, another tall one asked. “Sure, but I just wanted to tell you girls that they are not coming out. They are very tired and we have an early flight tomorrow. They appreciate that you came tonight and happy that you had such a good time”, Charly explained and watched as their faces went sad, one tiny blonde one even started crying. “If you still want the picture…?”, Charly asked and shrugged her shoulders. The tall one took a picture with her, but didn’t seem too happy about it, but Charly was too exhausted to actually care.

When she finally came back to her room, it was almost midnight. She found it empty and steaming hot since they had forgotten to turn on the air conditioning before they left that afternoon. Charly quickly turned it on and went to the bathroom. Although she was sweating, she still needed a hot shower to relax her muscles. Weirdly enough, she felt a little bit better than she did in the morning. Seemed like Liam was right with his “keep moving”-advice. If she told him, she would never hear the end of it.  
She half dried her hair and put on a shirt and pajama shorts and finally lay down on her bed. The only thing she wanted right now was to drift into a peaceful and hopefully long sleep.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the hottest chapter so far.
> 
> I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it ;)

Charly heard knocks on her door. “Oh please”, she groaned as she had just lain down. “I’m coming”, she called and began her painful journey of getting up and walking towards the door. “Please let it be important”, she mumbled to herself. “Hey beautiful”, Liam said as she had opened the door. “Hey, what’s up?”, she asked. If he was here for sex, he could immediately leave because that’s not going to happen tonight. And she was about to say that to him when he held up a bottle. “If that’s lube, you’re so gonna have to use it alone tonight”, Charly said and pulled an eyebrow up. “No, that’s massage oil. I thought I’ll give you a massage to ease your pain a little and relax you”, Liam quickly explained. “How come even the nice things sound dirty when you say it?”, Charly asked and let him in. “Well, to be honest, if it goes well and you’re relaxed, I’d hoped you would be up for a little something…”, he said and wiggled his eyebrows. “We’ll see how it goes”, Charly rolled her eyes, but couldn’t deny that the idea of a massage by Liam turned her on despite the fact that her whole body was aching. “Come on, lay down”, Liam said and softly pushed her towards the bed. “With pleasure”, she said and crawled on the bed while moaning in pain. “Don’t worry, you’ll feel better soon”, he said and put the oil on the nightstand.  
“Where do you want me?”, she asked, sitting in the middle of the bed. “Just get comfortable, but take your clothes off first”, Liam said. Charly gave him a questioning look. “Just the shirt and the pants. You can leave your underwear on…for now”, he mumbled the last part to himself and Charly just caught his devilish grin as he turned around to get some towels from the bathroom to not get the sheets dirty with the oil. Charly struggled a bit to get out of her clothes. Liam put the towels on the bed and she laid down on it with her face down. “What are you doing?”, she asked him and raised her head as she watched him undress as well. “I don’t want to get my clothes dirty”, Liam explained with an innocent expression on his face, but she could see that spark in his eyes.   
Charly watched every move of him and scanned his body with her eyes. As he came towards the bed, she turned around and closed her eyes. She felt the mattress go down as he climbed on it. “Oh”, she let out as she felt the cold oil on her back. “Sorry, it’s a bit cold”, Liam apologized. He put the bottle back on the nightstand and sat across her legs. “Can I open your bra? It will be better that way”, Liam asked. “For who?”, Charly asked and chuckled. She nodded her head and he opened the clasps. Her arms slid out of the straps and she tossed it aside. “So much to keeping on the underwear”, she said into the pillow and Liam had to smile. This actually wasn’t his intention, but he liked how this massage started. He rubbed his hands to get them warm and then he started to spread the oil on her back while softly kneading her skin.  
“Ohhh”, Charly moaned as her muscles were compressed by Liam’s strong hands. With the ball of his thumbs he pressed into her skin from the bottom of the back, up to her neck, fading out over her shoulders. “Go harder”, she mumbled and Liam grinned. He put more of his weight on his hands and worked her back up and down, from side to side. Charly moaned her approval. Liam focused a bit more on the hard muscles in her shoulder and neck region. Charly really enjoyed the massage. It seemed like Liam actually knew what he was doing. “Could you take care of my lower back muscles?”, she asked mumbling, sounding sleepy. “Sure, love”, Liam almost whispered to not ruin the atmosphere.  
Beneath his hand he felt how Charly relaxed. He moved further down until he sat between her feet, which she had bent to either side. Liam started to knead her sides, but then reached for more oil because the skin was getting too dry. He poured some of the liquid on her back and then put the bottle on the floor. He continued rubbing her skin and digging his fingers deep into her muscles what made her moan from deep down. Liam’s eyes wandered over her bum, along her back, up to her face. Her eyes were closed and it almost looked like she was asleep. He hooked his index fingers into her panties and slowly pulled them over her bum. Liam checked on her face if she was disagreeing with his action, but her facial expression remained unchanged.  
He put some more oil on her back and carefully wiped it down her bum and a bit got between her cheeks. Charly wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but it sure felt good and she didn’t want him to stop, so she didn’t dare to move. Liam’s hands were now completely on her bum, kneading the skin lightly and caressing it, moving further down with every movement until his fingers touched her center. Charly couldn’t hold back a slight moan. His hand was gone from her skin and she was about to protest as she felt the mattress next to her going down and Liam’s mouth at her ear at the next second. “Do you want me to go on?”, he whispered. Her skin was covered with goose bumps and she automatically licked her lip. “I want you to say it. Let me hear what you want from me”, Liam kept whispering and his lips brushed over her skin between her cheek and her ear. “Go on, Liam. Please, continue what you were about to do”, she mumbled and bit her lip. She felt his smile on her skin and then he moved back down to her bum.  
He dribbled some more oil directly on her center and started to run his fingers over her skin. Charly instinctively bit her lip and put out her bum to grant him more access. Liam let his fingers go around her center, teasing her a bit before he finally ran them through her folds down to her clit. He circled it and added some pressure which made her moan and she pressed herself against his finger.  
Liam enjoyed watching her face while he worked her. He didn’t want to miss any little note on her face as he entered her pussy with two fingers. “Oh god”, Charly let out and sucked in her lower lip. He started by slowly moving his fingers in and out, going deeper by every move.  
When Charly bucked her hips up every time that Liam pushed into her, he decided to go faster what she seemed to like as she moaned more frequently and louder. With his other hand, he started caressing her bum, kneading her skin and scratching over it with his nails, which made her moan even louder.  
When he felt that she didn’t have much longer, he put his free hand from her bum to her stomach and lifted her up a bit for his fingers to go even deeper. Charly’s hand gripped the towels beneath her and her breathing sped up. Liam really knew what he was doing down there and she came just a few seconds later, letting out a loud and deep groan into her pillow to not draw any attention to her room, if someone was walking past it right now.  
Liam slowed down his movements and slowly let her stomach back down on the bed. “That was incredible, Liam”, Charly mumbled and wanted to turn around, but Liam held her down. When she wanted to ask why he was doing that, he pressed his front on her bum as he leaned forward and that’s when she felt that he was ready for some fun. “I know that you’re tired and that you’re body hurts, but…”, he whispered at her ear. “I would be disappointed if you don’t”, she said while looking over her shoulder, giving him a dirty smirk. Liam smiled happily for a second then turning into his sexy self from before, licking her neck and kissing it.  
He sat back up again and quickly removed his underwear to free his rock hard cock. Pleasuring Charly and watching her come had made him want her more and more with every second. He grabbed his pants from the floor to take out a condom and quickly putting it on. Charly was watching him from the bed and admired the view she was given. Every time that he was standing in front of her like this, she thought to herself, even just for a second, how she deserved to fuck someone hot like this? And she couldn’t even brag about it because no one was allowed to know, but at the same time that was one of the ingredients that made the whole thing so incredibly hot.  
Liam came back up on the bed and placed himself behind her. Charly put her bum up again and he lifted her up even more by her sides. Before she could think even further, Liam pushed hard into her, causing her to let out a little cry of surprise. It didn’t hurt because of her coming just a minute before, her pussy was drenched. He didn’t waste any time on going slow and pushed deep into her, hitting just the right spot which made her lower stomach tingle again. It surprised her that she could feel something like that down there again so quickly after coming.  
Liam pushed hard into her center, holding her tight by her sides. His moans came from deep within, almost growling by every thrust. “Oh Liam”, Charly let out, biting her lip hard as she felt the warm, amazing feeling in her lower stomach, building up to what seemed to be an enormous orgasm. “Oh shit, Charly”, Liam groaned through his clenched teeth. “Oh god, keep going, please keep going”, she said and put her bum up even more, pushing hard against Liam’s crotch.  
He leaned forward and put his right hand on her clit, using the oil that was still there to circle and massage it with his fingers while also pressing her against his dick. Her breathing became heavier with every second and so did his. Both of them didn’t have long. “Liam, oh my god, Liam, make me come again, make me come, baby”, she moaned and her voice drove him crazy, wanting to make her come so hard because of him.  
With a few last, deep and hard thrusts, both of them came together. “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ”, Liam let out, not caring about his loud voice, not being able to think properly. Charly pressed her face into her pillow and just screamed…screamed out the overwhelming feeling that had risen from deep within and washed over her whole body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think about it?
> 
> Let me know!


	23. Chapter 23

Charly couldn’t wipe away the smile on her face the next day, so she just stared out of the window of their private plane, flying them to Finland for their next stop of the tour. The massage that Liam had given her last night had been more than great and the not-so-little bonus was overwhelming. It had totally made her forget about her aching body. It had her also forgetting about Lisa and that she could have walked in on them at any time. Only the next day, she found out that Lisa had fallen asleep in Lou’s room and just came back to her room the next morning to pack.  
Liam was sitting on the other end of the plane. Whenever they caught each other’s view, he would wink at her with a dirty smile which caused her cheeks to blush. “Hey Charly”, Niall sat down in the empty chair next to her. “Hey”, she answered back and rubbed at her cheeks, as if she could remove the red color like that. “My mom rang me up before the plane took off and reminded me about the anniversary of my grandparents in two weeks, back home in Dublin”, Niall told her, but she wasn’t really paying attention. “That’s nice”, she said while looking out of the window again. Charly was drifting off and that dumb smile appeared on her face again. “And she said that if I want, I could bring someone…”, Niall kept on talking and now was waiting for her to respond. “Charly?”, he asked after a few moments. “What?”, she turned around again, taken by surprise. She had been completely zoned out, not realizing that he was still talking to her. “Do…do you wanna…come?”, he asked and seemed very shy about it, which made Charly think that she might should have listened to him more closely. “Where?”, she asked, blushing now for a different reason. She hated it when someone did that to her and now she was no better.  
“Charly, could you come here for a second?”, she heard Paul a few rows away. “Sure, boss”, she said and while she got up, she gave Niall an apologizing smile. Niall leaned back in his chair and let out the air he had held back in frustration. “Stop tapping your foot or I’ll cut it off”, Niall heard Lisa two rows in front of him, hissing at Harry, looking up from her magazine. “Hurry, you’re on your lady-thing again”, Harry said to her and quickly got up to change seats as she folded her magazine up to a roll and tried to hit him with it.

When she finally came back to her room, it was around 9 pm. The preparations at the venue hadn’t even been close to where they should have been when the boys had arrived for soundcheck. Charly had to clarify what had gone wrong and needed to stay there to make sure they were working their asses off to get back on track. It hadn’t been easy at all because most of the workers there only spoke Finnish and the band’s crew was busy with their own work, especially doing the things that should already have been done.  
“How can I ever thank you, lads?”, she said to her crew and everything seemed to run smoothly. “Buy us a pint, love”, George, the head of the workers. “I buy you a whole pub, when we get back home”, she said smiling and finally headed back to their hotel.  
Charly really had to catch up on her finances. She got out her papers and documents, her calculator and pens. She had also printed out the credit card statements of the boys’ “on tour”-cards and during the day, she had collected the receipts they had gotten over the weeks.  
At first, she tried to assign the receipts to the right statement, which took quite a long time. She was missing so many receipts and had some indefinable amounts on the statements that Charly had to resist to cry out a few times. Those boys really made it hard for her to do her job sometimes, especially since they didn’t have to do it themselves. They would handle their “finances” a whole lot differently when they had to do the tour-cash-register. But on the other hand, IF one of the boys would actually do it, Charly would have even more work cleaning up that mess. Charly sighed and ran her hand through her hair. It wasn’t easy when there weren’t all needed papers and most of all, when she really wasn’t in the mood for it.  
It got loud in front of her hotel room door, which made it even harder for her to concentrate on her work. Charly massaged her temples and closed her eyes. She tried to zone out and completely concentrate on the papers in front of her, but the shouts and loud noises outside weren’t helping. “Foul, you prick!”, she heard through the wall. “Ahhh!” Screams and shouts like an army was about to storm into her room. She grunted in frustration and threw her pen across the room.  
Charly couldn’t stand to look at those figures any longer, especially when it was that loud outside. With a grunt she got up to tell them to be quiet and to check on what the hell they were actually doing. She yanked the door open with a tug. Just as she wanted to yell at the people outside her hotel room, she got ran over by Niall. “Ouch”, Charly moaned as her head had hit the floor. “Sorry, Charly, didn’t see you there”, he said, lying on top of her, the ball above her head.  
Even if he didn’t want to, he got up and jumped to his feet. “Here, let me help you up”, he said and held out his hand for her. Charly moved up to rest on her elbows and took a look at the scenery. All the boys and three from their band stood out in the hallway and looked at her. Louis, being the jerk he was, couldn’t stop laughing. “What are you even playing?”, she asked. “American football”, said Harry smiling brightly, having his hair up in a bun.  
Charly took Niall’s hand and he pulled her up to her feet. Then he bent down to pick up the ball. “You alright?”, he asked, putting the ball under is arm and was holding it on his side. She took a quick look around the hallway. All those smug faces. Her eyes wandered over to Louis and his stupid grin and back to Niall. “That’s it. REVENGE!”, Charly yelled, yanked the ball out of Niall’s arm and ran in the other direction.  
At first, they were all a bit surprised that she wanted to play instead of scream at them, but they got over their surprise pretty quickly. Charly got into Liam’s team which forced her to play with Louis and against Niall and Harry, but a friendly foul between team mates hadn’t hurt nobody. “You should watch your ass, Tommo”, Charly said while standing behind him, waiting for the other team to start the round. “I’m on your team, silly”, he said over his shoulder. “Don’t really care”, Charly shrugged her shoulders. “Hut, hut, hut”, Niall screamed out and passed the ball to Harry. He ran back a few steps and threw it to Josh, the drummer of the band. Or, better said, tried to throw because Charly ran past the other’s while Liam and Louis blocked the opponents and caught the ball in the air. “You go, girl”, Liam said as he saw her catching the ball and starting to run. Charly duck away from someone’s arms, trying to catch her and ran until the end of the corridor. “Touch down!”, she shouted and threw the ball to the ground. “Yeah!”, Liam came running towards her and picked her up by wrapping his arms around her hips. “Liam, put me down”, she said worried, but still laughing.  
“Harry, can I borrow a hair band?”, she asked her friend and pointed to the spare one he had around his wrist. “Yeah sure”, he said and handed it to her. She put her hair up in a pony tail and gave him a thankful smile. “When you girls done discussing your hair, can we go back to playing?”, Louis sarcastically said, looking annoyed. “Shut up, Louis”, Charly said and gave his butt a little kick while walking past him.  
They got back on their positions. “We’re in the lead now, so you better watch out”, Liam said and pointed to the one’s across from him. “Shut up and play”, Niall threw back, being mad for losing.  
“Hut, hut, hut”, Liam shouted and gave the ball to Zayn, which passed it to Charly. She tried to play it just like before, but this time Harry tried to stop her. He tackled her and his head landed on her chest. Instead of getting up, he just kept laying there, not willing to get up. “No nap time now, we’re in a game”, Charly said and patted his head. Then she just pushed him off, got up and stuck out her tongue to him while she walked backwards to her team.  
“Hey, you guys want to switch up teams?”, Niall asked. “Wanna be on the winnig side for a change?”, Louis asked and chuckled. “Definitely don’t want to be in a team with you, Tommo”, Niall responded. His real intention wasn’t the winning-part, he wanted to be on the same team as Charly and, to be honest, wanted to have a good look at her arse, when she was standing in front of him. “I want to play with Charly”, Harry called the shots and put his long arm around her shoulders. “You guys do what you want, but I have to get back to my receipts. They ain’t gonna do themselves”, Charly said and took Harry’s arm off her. “Don’t leave me…STELLA”, Harry almost screamed, imitating some lines from a movie. “Jesus Christ”, Louis sighed and turned around, walking a few steps away.  
“Come on Charly, play with us”, Niall tried to keep her here for a little longer. “No, thanks. You boys play with your balls and I go back to work”, she said and went back to her room. “She doesn’t want to play. Can we go on now?”, Louis complained from the back of the corridor and sounded really annoyed. Charly shook her head and rolled her eyes as she closed the door behind her.


	24. Chapter 24

The branches of a tree knocked at her window repeatedly and she could hear the thick and heavy reaindrops smashing against the glass as she slid deeper under the covers of her bed.  
A weather storm was going on outside and Charly had no interest in going out like Lisa, Lou and some of the others. She just wanted to crawl into her bed and hide under her blanket from the storm. It didn’t matter how old she was and it probably never will, she didn’t like weather storms. It seemed like it took her forever to fall asleep.  
And that’s why she grunted in frustration just about an hour later. She couldn’t believe Lisa had woken her up just as she had managed to fall asleep. The next second the felt a hand on her shoulder, rocking her back and forth. “What?”, Charly asked angrily and looked over her shoulder. “You have to leave”, Lisa said. “I have to what?”, Charly asked in disbelief. “You have to leave. I brought someone with me…from the club. THE cutest guy ever. Finnland is the place where hot men come from”, Lisa gushed over her night out. “Why don’t you go to his place?”, Charly asked. “The hotel was closer”, Lisa waved her off. “But…”, Charly started to disagree, but Lisa interrupted her. “Do you want me to get laid or not? I promise I’ll be nicer after that”, Lisa said.  
After the last few days with a, what Louis called, a PMS-Lisa, her argument didn’t sound so bad. “Alright, but don’t you dare do it on my bed”, she said and got up. She quickly grabbed her hoodie and the keycards to all the rooms and walked out, passing a Finnish, really handsome, guy who would soon be smiling even brighter than right now. “Thanks”, Lisa said smiling, handed her the spare keycard for the next morning and closed the door behind the man. “And where do I sleep now?”, Charly mumbled to herself and looked at the keycards in her hand. She figured since Niall had the double room to himself this time, he would have a spare bed left for her. Hopefully he didn’t bring someone up to his room as well. She figured, she just had to try and hope for the best. Charly walked to the end of the corridor and quickly got in. It was all dark inside, so he probably wasn’t back from the club.  
She silently closed the door behind her. When she turned around to walk into the bedroom, she ran right into someone. Two high pitched screams escaped into the dark room. Charly found the light switch and Niall appeared in front of her. “Charly? What are you doing here?”, he asked surprised, with a hand on his racing heart. This had scared the crap out of him. Charly needed a moment to slow down her own heavily beating heart. “I thought you were still out with the others. God, Niall, you scared me to death”, she said, panting heavily.  
“Sorry”, Niall apologized, which was sweet, given the fact that she was the one “breaking” into his room. “Lisa brought a guy to our room and kicked me out. I kinda hoped I could stay at your room for the night”, Charly explained in a whispered tone. Besides their screaming, everything around them seemed asleep, so she didn’t dare to speak up.  
So many thoughts ran through Niall’s head right now. Charly in his hotel room, in the middle of the night, with not very much clothes on, wanting to stay the night. He had imagined, even dreamed about that, that’s why he wasn’t sure if it was really happening right now. “Niall?”, Charly asked confused. He had been silent for quite some time. “What?”, he asked, still a bit shocked and confused from before. “Can I stay the night at your room?”, Charly asked again and had to smile lightly. He looked cute with his hair standing in all directions. “Yeah, sure. Come in”, Niall said and she followed him into the bedroom.  
They both stood in front of the big double bed and looked at it in silence. A loud thunder stroke through the air outside and Charly jumped. “Oh JESUS CHRIST!”, Charly let out and her hand rushed to her racing heart. “You really don’t like thunder, huh?”, Niall asked amused. “Absolutely not”, she replied. “So how are we doing this?”, Charly asked to distract herself. She had forgotten that Niall had requested a king size double bed instead of two single beds. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sleeping in the bed”, Niall said. “Oh, what a gentleman you are”, Charly replied sarcastically. “Oh, should I sleep on the floor then?”, Niall asked unsure. “Don’t be ridiculous. We share the bed”, Charly said and crawled onto it. Niall lay down on the right side and Charly on the left. A bright lightning struck outside and you could hear the wind howl around the building. “For god’s sake”, Charly grunted frustrated and got up again to draw the curtains. It was almost completely dark inside the hotel room. She got back into bed again and pulled the blanket up to her nose. “You’re really frightened”, Niall said as if he just now realized it. “Would you mind holding me?”, Charly asked. “Huh?”, was Niall’s eloquent reply. “As a child, whenever a thunder storm was going on outside, I would sneak into my parents bed and cuddle up to my mum. I felt protected and safe from the thunder storm”, Charly explained. She felt weird asking him that favor since they had never been THAT close, but she was so frightened: It wasn’t like she wanted to sleep with him and used the thunderstorm as false pretences.  
“Alright. I give the best hugs after all”, Niall said with a cocky smile. “I know you do”, Charly smiled and moved closer to Niall, as she thought back to when Niall had helped with her panic attack at the stadium in Switzerland. She rested her head on his left arm and he put his right one around her upper body. Niall couldn’t believe his luck of having Charly that close to him. He even smelled her hair. “So, do you wanna tell me the whole story behind your fear?”, he mumbled to distract himself. “I don’t know…I guess…yeah. We had this big beautiful tree in our garden with a swing on it. I loved that tree, I even thought that ferries lived in it and talked to them”, Charly told. Niall chuckled at the thought. “Shut up, I was little and believed in everything my dad told me”, she playfully slapped his chest. “No, it’s cute, really”, Niall quickly said, but couldn’t stop grinning. “However…I loved that tree and the swing very, very much. One day, there was this big, awful thunderstorm going on and my parents and I were watching it through the window. All of a sudden a big lightning struck right into that tree, cut it in half and that one half even fell towards the house and ruined a part of the roof. My dad had to cut down the whole tree and I was so sad. Also seeing the tree cut in half and falling down scared me so much that, I guess, from that moment on I was afraid of thunder and lightning and so on. I know it’s stupid childhood stuff”, Charly ended her story. Oddly enough, at that moment you could hear another loud thunder outside and Charlys whole body twitched. Niall pulled her even closer and Charly put her head in the crook on his neck. “I think, we better sleep now”, Charly mumbled and felt her eyelids getting heavy. “Goodnight, Charly”, Niall mumbled. “Goodnight, Niall”, Charly replied likewise. “Charly?”, Niall whispered. “Yeah?”, she asked. “I’m going to the anniversary party of my grandparents in 2 weeks. It will be pretty boring, typical family stuff. Would you like to come anyway?”, he asked, his heart pounding loudly. He hoped she wouldn’t hear it, laying so close to him. It was silent for a few moments, painful long moments for Niall. “Yes, why not. Sounds fun. I always wanted to visit Ireland”, Charly said, almost half asleep. The warmth of his body and his arms wrapped around her made her feel safe and comfortable. Niall smiled brightly, which she couldn’t see in the dark room. Now he could happily go to sleep.  
“Thank you for letting me stay here”, Charly said a few moments later. “Any time, love”, Niall said and kissed her hair. At the sound of Niall’s steady heartbeat, Charly quickly dozed off. Niall wanted to stay up just a little bit longer to enjoy this moment with Charly, but the weariness was too strong and he quickly fell asleep too.


End file.
